Voices of México No. 88 by lucino gutierrez

ISSN 0186 • 9418 Voices of Mexico is published by the Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, cisan (Center for Research on North America) of the Coordinación de Humanidades (Office of the Coordinator of Humanities), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, unam (National Autonomous University of Mexico). Director Silvia Núñez García

Editor-in-Chief

Editor

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Diego Bugeda Bernal

Elsie Montiel Ziegler

Heather Dashner Monk

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María Cristina Hernández Escobar

Patricia Pérez Ramírez

María Soledad Reyes Lucero

Layout

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Subscriptions

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Silvia Núñez García and Erik Lee

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“100 Years of History” Guest Editor Silvestre Villegas Revueltas

Rector, unam José Narro Robles

Coordinator of Humanities Estela Morales Campos

Director of the Center For Research On North America (cisan) Silvia Núñez García EDITORIAL BOARD Sergio Aguayo, Carlos Alba Vega, Jorge Basave Kunhardt, Arturo Borja Tamayo, Jorge Bustamante, Jorge Carpizo, Fernando Rafael Castañeda Sabido, Roberto Escalante, Guadalupe González, Carlos González Gutiérrez, Rosario Green, Roberto Gutiérrez López, Elizabeth Gutiérrez Romero, Julio Labastida, Miguel León-Portilla, Paz Consuelo Márquez Padilla, Mario Melgar, William Merrill, Humberto Muñoz García, Ruperto Patiño Manffer, Olga Pellicer, Guillermo Pulido González, Vicente Quirarte, Federico Reyes Heroles, Andrés Rozental, José Sarukhán, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Fernando Solana, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, María Teresa Uriarte, Diego Valadés, José Luis Valdés-Ugalde, Ambrosio Velasco Gómez, Mónica Verea, Luis Villoro. Carlos Rico Ferrat (†) Address letters, advertising and subscription correspondence to: Voices of Mexico, Av. Universidad 3000, Torre II de Humanidades, piso 9, C.U., Coyoacán, 04510, México, D.F. Tel: 5623 0308. Electronic mail: voicesmx@servidor.unam.mx. Annual subscription rates: Mexico Mex$140; USA US$30; Canada Can$40; other countries US$55, prepaid in U.S. currency to UNAM. Opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent the views of Voices of Mexico. All contents are fully protected by © copyright and may not be reproduced without the written consent of Voices of Mexico. The magazine is not responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts. Publicación cuatrimestral, año veintitrés, número 88, otoño de 2010. ISSN 0186-9418. Certificado de Licitud de Contenido núm. 2930 y Certificado de Licitud de Título núm. 3340, expedidos por la Comisión Calificadora de Publicaciones y Revistas Ilustradas. Reserva al uso exclusivo del título núm. 04-2002-060413383000-102, expedida por el Instituto Nacional del Derecho de Autor. Correspondencia nacional de segunda clase. Registro 0851292. Características 220261212. Correspondencia internacional de segunda clase. Registro Cri D F 002-92. Preprensa e impresión en Impresora Transcontinental de México, Durazno núm. 1, Col. Las Peritas, Tepepan, Xochimilco, México, D.F. Impreso en Offset.

Editorial

Our Voice Silvia Núñez García

Issue 88 Autumn 2010

Politics 7

Interview with Arturo Sarukhán, Mexican Ambassador to the United States Leonardo Curzio

Mexico and the International Environmental Agenda María Cristina Rosas

Economy 15

China’s Impact on Mexican, Canadian and U.S. Trade The Beginning of nafta’s Decline? Enrique Pino Hidalgo

North American Issues 20

Eating Patterns in Mexican and U.S. Marginalized Groups in the 1940s Bernardo Olmedo Carranza

100 Years of History 25

From Independence To the Revolution Six Views from the Present

Municipal House, or Deputation. Decaen, ed., México y sus alrededores (Mexico City: Establecimiento Litográfico de Decaen, 1855 and 1856).

New Spain and Independence

Cover and Back Cover

Alfredo Ávila

Independent, Inexperienced and Disorganized Political Life in Mexico (1821-1855) María del Carmen Vázquez Mantecón

The Significance of the Reform Period (1855-1862) Silvestre Villegas Revueltas

“When We Were an Empire” The Monarchical Experiment in Mexico (1864-1867)

Érika Pani

Arizona’s New Anti-immigrant Law and Federal Immigration Reform Doris Marie Provine

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917)

The United States v. Arizona The Power Struggle Over Setting Immigration Enforcement Priorities

Álvaro Matute

Evelyn Cruz

Art and Culture 58

Ariadna Estévez López

From the Restoration of the Republic to the Dictatorship of a Single Man (1867-1910) Evelia Trejo

Human Rights and the Fetishization of sb 1070

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108

Arizona’s Law: The Wrong Strategy Paz Consuelo Márquez-Padilla

Film and the Mexican Revolution David M. J. Wood

113

On the Labyrinths of sb 1070 Silvia Núñez García

An Homage to Carlos Monsiváis

117

65 Mexico since September 11, 2001

Concluding Thoughts D. Rick van Schoik

Carlos Monsiváis

Carlos Monsiváis as Testmonialist

Claire Joysmith

Literature 119

Carlos Monsiváis Catechizing Mephistopheles

Liliana Valenzuela, a Contemporary Malinche: On Being a Bilingual and Bicultural Creative Scribe Interview by Claire Joysmith

Adolfo Castañón 124 75 Nostalgia for Monsiváis

Jezreel Salazar

A Poem by Liliana Valenzuela

Special Section The Cascading Effects of Arizona’s sb 1070

Reviews

The Cascading Effects of Arizona’s sb 1070 An Overview Erik Lee

The Immigration Debate about Mexicans Jaime R. Aguila

Nov. 2, 1998: On the Eve of Becoming an American Citizen

Obama and the Anti-Mexican sb 1070 Mónica Verea

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Celebrating Mexico’s History Arturo Cosme Valadez

Our Voice S

eptember seems to have arrived in Mexico more quickly in 2010 than in previous years. Although most of us in Mexico traditionally celebrate el grito or the “cry of independence,” whether by participating in popular verbenas (street festivities), with friends or with family, there were immense expectations throughout the country for this year’s celebrations of two centuries of the country’s independence. It is clear that despite the increasing violence in our country, Mexicans demons trated their patriotism, and were able to put aside their apathy and even their fears. However, the festivities were accompanied by severe criticism of the excessive spending these activities signified. The federal government alone spent 2.9 billion pesos (about 223 million usd dollars), and together with the disorganization and particularly the failure to complete a number of monumental public works designed precisely to enhance the memory of this bicentennial, these elements remain as the evidence of the culmination of another cycle of independence. The context in which this commemoration took place revealed a number of cir cumstances that are important to mention. First of all, for a million Mexicans living in 14 of the country’s municipalities, official festivities were cancelled due to the climate of insecurity. In addition it was reaffirmed that the country continues to be incapable of breaking with its characteristic macrocephaly, favoring Mexico City above the rest of the nation’s territory, since the quality and spectacular nature of the fiestas were confined to the great metropolis. There was a failure to share these festivities more equitably —if not with each and every state— at least with the major geographical regions. These comments are aimed particularly at bringing the attention of our readers to the section in this issue entitled “One Hundred Years of History,” in which an outstanding group of specialists offer us a panoramic view of Mexico’s historic trans formation from 1810 to 1917. Identifying its decisive stages from the fight for Inde pendence to the final moments of the Mexican Revolution, the authors speak of the struggle waged by a nation that never loses sight of its past, while looking ahead to its future. Also, in our “Special Section” we invite you to review the sequence of articles representing an unprecedented collaboration by a well-established group of dis tinguished scholars from Mexico and the United States. Those of us participating assumed the task of analyzing the serious implications from the implementation of one of the most severe and controversial state laws for halting undocumented immi gration: Law sb 1070, known as the “Arizona Law.”

Recognizing the complexity of the migration phenomenon between the two countries, our reflection is multidisciplinary and focuses on its origins, its many facets, and its consequences on both sides of the border. It has been especially im portant to acknowledge that the observations made by each of us participating as authors were the result of a genuine transnational exercise. This experience has led to the conviction that in order to bring the migration debate out of its stalemate, the formula used cannot be unilateral in nature. This type of collaboration among scholars must consequently take place not only on an ongoing basis, but must be aimed at seeking shared solutions. On another topic, we believe that if we failed to acknowledge the loss of one of Mexico’s great voices, we would not be true to our magazine’s mission. The voice of writer Carlos Monsiváis ceased to be heard as of this past June. Recognized as a chronicler, journalist and political activist since the years of his youth, he belonged to the generation of Mexico’s 1968 student movement. Char acterized by his firm convictions, he became an obligatory point of reference as a critic with a profound knowledge of Mexican politics, but also due to his passion for the manifestations of our popular urban culture. His exceptional characteristic was his sense of humor, accompanied by a unique sense of irony in his use of the language. In one of his texts, now-absent Carlos Monsiváis wrote: “And I saw an open door, and I went in, and I heard archangelical sounds…and I saw Mexico City.” Today we acknowledge that even though the door has been closed, all of Mexico will continue to experience and observe through his eyes for many years to come. I will conclude by recapitulating the two sections of this issue addressed at the beginning of this editorial, on the celebration of our country’s history, and on the di lemma represented by migration between Mexico and the United States. It is enough to concur with something written by polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński in the sense that if we live in a world of exacerbated nationalisms, we limit ourselves to perpetually remain strangers, since we are left without a name, an age or a profession. Rejecting such nationalisms is thus a lesson that can lead us to a mature civic atti tude in which all of us can demonstrate our capacity to re-route our destiny toward a constructive horizon.

Silvia Núñez García

Politics

Interview with Arturo Sarukhán, Mexican Ambassador To the United States Isaac Esquivel/Cuartoscuro

Leonardo Curzio*

Leonardo Curzio (LC): Mr. Ambassador, May 20 must have been a very special day for you, when President Felipe Calde rón was applauded 27 times in the United States Congress. Arturo Sarukhán (AS): Certainly, and I think that the ap plause was particularly welcomed by the president as he en tered the hall and was introduced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. For the first time in many years, the U.S. Con gress recognizes what is being done in Mexico, the efforts of a first executive who has decided to confront organized crime. The recognition of how important bilateral relationships are for anti-narcotics cooperation against organized crime began dur ing a Republican administration, under George W. Bush, but it has been under this Democratic administration that the legis lators themselves have become the big champions of cooper ation with Mexico against organized crime, and I think that was clear last May 20. LC: You could count 13 minutes of applause, and another note worthy thing was the way the president was treated. Mr. Am *Journalist and researcher at cisan.

Mexico’s ambassador in the United States.

bassador —I don’t know if you talk in these terms in international relations— but the reception of Mexico’s president seemed affectionate. AS: Well, in this area one runs the risk of falling into using hackneyed phrases, but, as you say, the way the Obamas wel comed the president was really remarkable. It was clear at the state dinner and the reception later, in that pavilion decorated with Monarch butterflies in honor of President Calderón’s Mi choacán roots, that there was a touch that not all heads of state do for a visiting first executive. LC: Apart from this great recognition of President Calderón, could we say that greater sensitivity was fostered among po 7

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litical circles and, more broadly, among the public, about the need to assume joint responsibility not only for security is sues, but also for migration? AS: Yes. As a matter of fact, on Friday, May 21, a Washington Post editorial commented on Felipe Calderón’s speech, firmly supporting his proposal of stopping the flow of weapons to Mexico. And, it’s true: the other issues are starting to per meate the thinking of both political circles and the public in the United States. That doesn’t mean that everything has been resolved or that there won’t be any more problems and tensions to deal with —even Gordian knots that will have to be cut— but I think that the joint communiqué by both pres idents after the meeting in the Oval Office, a seven-page document, is very substantive.1 It’s divided into four or five issues fundamental to bilateral relations, and it shows that while security is at the core, bilateral relations go far beyond that and involve issues as important as economic development; competitiveness; the social welfare of our two countries; prob Calderon’s visit to Arlington sent two very powerful messages: first, that we are a country looking forward, not back, and second, the outstanding role that Mexican Americans and Hispanics in general are playing in the United States armed forces. lems of global scope, like how to deal with the challenges of climate change; and, obviously other commitments like se curity and the need for immigration reform.

also facilitating border and customs operations, the construc tion of new infrastructure, the mitigation of environmental impacts, and the need to have non-intrusive technology to facilitate imports and exports. This concept of a “twenty-first century border” implies a comprehensive focus that previous U.S. administrations sim ply had not accepted. For the first time, we are seeing this kind of focus in handling border issues, which seems very important to me. LC: At home, President Calderón’s speech was very well received. The president of Mexico’s Senate, Carlos Navarrete, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (prd), dubbed it a speech that reflected a large part of our national aspirations. Now, I have read criticisms saying that Felipe Calderón had crossed certain lines and meddled in U.S. politics, like in the case of Arizona, for example. What is your point of view about this? AS: A speech like this one has to walk a very fine line, and I think that objective was achieved, even though perhaps we did wade into “American waters,” so to speak, to a certain extent. But I don’t think there’s any other way of establishing a firm, clear, forceful position about the potential impacts that that law could have. I think that it was important for President Calderón to set out his position and, in effect, the reaction in the House of Representatives was partisan, as I suppose that anyone watching on television would have noticed: the entire Dem ocratic caucus and guests in the gallery were on their feet applauding Felipe Calderón. LC: What significance did his visit to Arlington have?

LC: What can you tell us about competitiveness in the region? AS: We could say that it has advanced, not only within North America, but also in how we continue to strengthen North Amer ica’s ability to compete with Asia and the European Union, in the standardization of procedures, the elimination of cus toms forms in each of our three countries. It seems to me that the communiqué I mentioned shows the wide array of issues and an unprecedented determination to continue moving ahead and resolving questions of mutual interest. For several years, Mexican administrations had been trying to put the need for a comprehensive approach to bor der issues on the table; not just security and migration, but 8

AS: I think it sent two very powerful messages: first, that we are a country looking forward, not back, interested in all aspects of relations with the United States. Prime ministers and heads of state or government of countries defeated mil itarily by the United States, like, for example, Japan and Germany, have put wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I think it was important for Mexico to make this kind of gesture in recognition of the fallen, because, also, we mustn’t forget that that tomb also includes soldiers from World Wars I and II. LC: We were their allies in World War II…

P olitics

AS: That’s right. The second reason is —and I think this is what really motivated the president to make the decision— the outstanding role that Mexican Americans and Hispanics in general are playing in the United States armed forces. Many of them serve in the U.S. military as a means to get their U.S. citizenship. A lot of relatives of Mexican-American and His panic veterans and fallen accompanied the president and they were truly moved; some had tears in their eyes when they thanked him for making that gesture to recognize the com munity’s contributions to that nation’s security.

The North American Booklets

LC: It was interesting that the president opened his speech evoking the words of Octavio Paz, saying that the United States is a country that looks to the future and that in many ways, ours is one that looks to the past. The president began by saying that Mexico is also a country that looks to the fu ture and has to work out a new way of looking at relations with its neighbor. AS: At one point, Octavio Paz also wrote that the relation ship between Mexico and the United States was complicat ed, to say the least, because we Mexicans didn’t know how to talk and the Americans didn’t know how to listen. For the first time, Mexico is talking —and loudly— and for the first time, the Americans are listening. I think this has created once again the possibility of changing the direction the relationship takes, of giving it a strategic horizon. That doesn’t mean that we should set off fireworks in the belief that everything has been solved in bilateral relations. The prob lems will continue. There will be issues that we’ll have to re solve; we’ll continue to have different perspectives on a series of bilateral, regional, and global questions. It seems to me that this relationship, despite how com plicated the context is because of the events in Arizona, the lack of immigration reform, and the violence we are witness ing along the border, has a promising future if we know how to capitalize on it.

The collection is an academic series aimed at readers interested in social, political, economic, demographic and, of course, foreign policy and international relations issues in North America. The series presents both well-documented, timely analyses of current issues and theoretical, specialized reflections based on rigorous research.

For sale at Torre II de Humanidades, piso 10, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City. Notes 1

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/declaraci-n-conjunta-de-los -presidentes-barack-obama-y-felipe-calder-n and http://www.whitehouse .gov/the-press-office/declaraciones-del-presidente-obama-y-el-presidente -calder-n-de-m-xico-en-declaracio.

Phones: (0115255) 5623-0311, 5623-0314 and 5623-0315 www.cisan.unam.mx

Mexico and the International Environmental Agenda

Beawiharta Beawiharta/REUTERS

María Cristina Rosas*

Flooding is one of the most visible consequences of climate change.

ew in the world today would deny the importance of the environmental agenda and the need for internation al cooperation to deal with the challenges of climate change and other ills endangering the life of the planet. For tunately, the community of nation’s interest in environmental problems is increasing, among other reasons because of 1. t he end of the Cold War, which makes it possible to pay attention to issues other than militarism and the arms race; 2. t he growing amount of information available about the challenges to our ecosystems; * Professor and researcher at the unam School of Political and So cial Sciences.1 mcrosas@correo.unam.mx.

3. recurring natural phenomena like hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and/or earthquakes, that become disasters because of many countries’ scant preparation; 4. the increased perception that environmental problems are closely linked to other challenges for societies, for example, in the fields of sanitation and food produc tion and distribution; and 5. the enormous economic cost of environmental dete rioration.

Environmental Security For these reasons one concept more and more frequently used by ecologists and social scientists is “environmental security.” 11

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This alludes to different issues, outstanding among them the effects of environmental deterioration on societies and its associated potential for conflict. However, there is no con sensus on the definition of the concept. For example, one definition couples it with the adverse affects of human activ ities on the environment, including military activities, since it is conceived as a global public good, valuable for current or future human life. Another weighs the effects of environmen tal changes, particularly scarcity due to environmental deg radation, on the stability of the most vulnerable countries. In this sense, it recognizes that this degradation may not be the only cause of violent conflicts, but could very well contribute to their breaking out, particularly when combined with other elements of vulnerability or government weakness, low legiti macy of authorities, and other factors. It would also be wise to weigh unsustainable behavior by some companies (like those in the fields of oil and mining) and the corruption related to the use of natural resources. Another definition of the concept underlines the effects of environmental changes in human security and the well-be ing of populations. This includes, among other things, natural disasters with variable degrees of anthropogenic causality. De spite societies’ being increasingly aware that environmental devastation endangers human life and that ecocide is a threat to security, voices have been raised to express concern about what they consider the “securitization” of the environmental agenda. One argument is based on the interpretation that the concept of environmental security was coined with the sole aim of situating the environment in the sphere of “high politics” for “sinister purposes.” There is also a risk of milita rizing the issue, that is, that the military participate in determin ing agendas that, presumably, do not fall within their purview. Some say that it is not unthinkable that environmental secu rity rhetoric could be used to justify military operations in the name of “protecting global resources.” The case of the Chi nese soldiers stationed in Darfur to protect oil platforms is just one example. Others find in the environmental security discourse an other hegemonic resource of the “North,” since its definition depends to a great extent on how “someone’s security” is de fined. These same people point to the need to include the vision of the countries of the “South” in any concept devel oped. Some oppose an analysis of the dynamics of the control of resources like oil, diamonds, or precious woods to the vi sion of environmental security threatened by resource deg radation. 12

Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, the United Nations Environmental Program coordinates activities, offering assistance to member countries to implement appropriate environmental policies and foster sustainable development.

The Environmental Agenda in International Relations In 1987, the Our Common Future report introduced the con cept of sustainable development: the practice that assigns responsibilities to today’s generations in their interrelation ship with their natural surroundings, which has been, and clearly continues to be, very destructive.2 Thus, sustainable development is defined as satisfying the needs of today with out compromising those of future generations. The concept itself implies a very important change in the idea of sustainability, mainly ecological sustainability, and proposes an analytical framework that also emphasizes the economic and social context in which development takes place. The aim of sustainable development is to satisfy hu man needs assuming that there are restrictions of different kinds:

1. ecological: that is, it promotes the conservation of the planet Earth; 2. moral: based on renouncing consumption levels that not all individuals can aspire to; 3. regarding economic growth in places where the most ba sic needs are not satisfied, that is, in the poor countries; 4. demographic control, mainly regarding birth rates; 5. not endangering the natural systems that sustain life on Earth; 6. the conservation of ecosystems must be subordinate to human welfare, since not all ecosystems can be pre served in their virgin state; and 7. the use of non-renewable resources must be as efficient as possible.

Aspiring to sustainable development requires understand ing that inaction will have consequences and that, therefore, institutional structures must be changed and certain forms

politics

The Green Fund Mexico proposed would create a financing system under the aegis of the convention and with the participation of all its members for increasing global mitigation efforts.

of individual and social behavior fostered to attain the afore mentioned ends. Despite increased environmental awareness worldwide, this is not reflected in the actions of the institutions neces sary for attacking the problem. Suffice it to mention that, to date, no multilateral international body is specifically dedi cated to environmental issues. The un has only one environ mental program, the United Nations Environmental Program (unep), created on the recommendation of the 1972 un Con ference on Human Development in Stockholm. Headquar tered in Nairobi, Kenya, the unep coordinates activities in this area, offering assistance to member countries to imple ment appropriate environmental policies and foster sustain able development.

could make life on Earth impossible. In reference to the Kyo to Protocol, the European Commission has stated that these changes will have a grave impact on the ecosystem and its economies.

From Copenhagen to Cancún Thus, given that the Kyoto commitment must be renewed to avoid further global warming, the unfccc has been orga nizing international climate change conferences since 1995. Last year, Copenhagen played host to the 15th International Conference on Climate Change, which proposed coming to a consensus on a legally binding agreement about the mea sures for mitigating climate change starting in 2012. The discussion centered on three topics:

Environmental Responsibility And the Kyoto Protocol In the absence of a full-fledged international body, it has been necessary to deposit environmental responsibility in spe cific instruments like the Kyoto Protocol. This international agreement’s aim is to reduce approximately 5 percent com pared to 1990 levels the emissions of six gases responsible for global warming (carbon dioxide, or co2; methane gas, ch4; nitrous oxide, n2o; and three industrial fluoride gases: hydrofluorocarbons, or hfc; perfluorocarbons, or pfc; and sulfur hexafluoride, or sf6) between 2008 and 2012. This instrument operates in the context of the un Frame work Convention on Climate Change (unfccc), written in 1992 during the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. The protocol made binding what the unfccc could not at that time. The main objective is to diminish anthropogenic climate change based on the greenhouse effect. According to un figures, the average temperature of the planet’s surface will increase be tween 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius from now until 2100, which

1. The reduction of carbon dioxide (co2) by the devel oped countries. The European Union, for example, an nounced a plan to reduce its co2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (a goal adopted in 2008), but no other country has set concrete reduction goals. Barack Obama also announced the United States’ desire to reduce its emis sions, and decided to participate in the summit, where he promised large investments in renewable energy sources. However, the developing and poorest coun tries demanded bigger efforts by the United States and that developed countries drastically reduce their pol luting emissions. 2. The dilemma in the developing countries is how to promote development without damaging nature. These countries argue that most climate change has been caused by the richest countries. Nevertheless, some developing countries have also committed to reducing their emis sions. In March 2009, Mexico was the first developing country to propose a drastic reduction in polluting gases, committing to cut its emissions 50 percent by 2050. Worldwide, Mexico is responsible for 1.6 percent of green house gas emissions. Thus, it introduced into the de bate the issue of voluntary commitments, in addition to the mandated-contractual commitments that are hoped for at the 16th International Conference on Climate Change. 3. With regard to aid to poor countries so they can adapt to the imperatives of reducing emissions, Mexico once again has shown leadership by proposing something 13

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new: a World Fund for Climate Change (or Green Fund) to complement the current system.

Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Green Fund The so-called Green Fund would create a financing system under the aegis of the convention and with the participation of all its members for increasing the scale of global mitiga tion efforts. Two issues are at play in the current negotia tions: mitigation and adaptation. The first refers to concrete actions for attacking the problem, and the second is based on a financial package to help countries to implement those measures. Certainly, opinions are divided between those who sup port the Green Fund proposal and those who are reticent, par ticularly with regard to earmarking funds. To solve this problem Mexico also proposed the concept of differentiated respon sibilities, so that all the developed countries who want to use the fund can participate and contribute to it. In exceptional cases, the nations officially known as “least developed” could also benefit from the fund without contributing money to it. This financing system would come under the most intense scrutiny to guarantee it be used appropriately. Mexico’s role in the negotiations in support of policies to fight climate change can also be seen in the fact that the 16th United Nations Conference on Climate Change will be held in Cancún next December, where it is hoped there will fi nally be a binding agreement. As mentioned before, a series of countries are pushing for voluntary commitments, many of them discretely. This is a matter for concern because if nations do not comply with what they promise, they assume no legal responsibility and are not accountable at all. In any case, vol untary commitments should complement and not replace binding commitments, because without the latter, there can be no appropriate environmental governability in the face of the global warming challenge. It should be remembered that Mexico’s experience has been good in dealing with the environmental issue, even in trade negotiations, as demonstrated by the 1994 side agree ment to the North American Free Trade Agreement. That agreement created the Commission on Environmental Co operation of North America (cec), whose aim is to deal with environmental matters of common concern, contribute to preventing environmental conflicts arising from trade relations, and promoting effective enforcement of environmental leg 14

islation in the three member countries. The cec is not a su pra-national but rather an intergovernmental body; its strategic objective is to ensure environmental sustainability in markets and regional protection of the environment. The cec is not only important because it links eco nomic and trade activities to the environment, but also be cause it puts forward a series of opportunities to promote environmentally friendly technologies, which in today’s con ditions, create a variety of alternatives in a world in need of “clean economic options.” Proposals like making polluters pay for environmental damage are echoed in the spirit of that accord. Environmental problems respect no borders, which is why concerted action is needed to deal with them. We need go no further than to cite the April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mex ico’s Macondo Prospect, which sparked an oil spill of tens of millions of gallons in the area, considered the worst oil acci dent in history. The U.S. government blames oil giant British Petroleum, which has used different mechanisms to “plug” the leak, unsuccessfully, at least at the time of this writing. Part of the problem is the huge depth of the oil spill. And while the contamination is particularly affecting the United States, Mexico is also suffering from the fallout, which is why Mexican legislators have voted to investigate it. It would be important, then, for example, for the cec to take this issue in hand, given that it affects two nafta signers. Unfortunately, few trade agreements reflect any con cern about the environment. Nevertheless, Mexico has im portant experience in this area that it could share with other nations, precisely at a time when the international commu nity is forced to join forces to overcome the environmental problems plaguing it.

Notes 1

he author is the head of the Olaf Palme Center for Analysis and Research T on Peace, Security and Development. Her most recent book is Las ope raciones de mantenimiento de la paz de las Naciones Unidas. Lecciones desde el mundo (un Peacekeeping Operations. Lessons from the World) (Mexico City: unam/Folke Bernadotte Academy, 2008), http://www.pa ginasprodigy.com/mcrosas.

This socio-economic report was written for the un by the World Commission on Environment and Development (wced), headed by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, which is why it is also known as the Brundtland Report. It is available at http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm. [Editor’s Note.]

ECONOMY

China’s Impact on Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. Trade The Beginning of nafta’s Decline? Siu Chiu/REUTERS

Enrique Pino Hidalgo*

ndeniably, trade among Mexico, Canada, and the United States has changed over at least the last five years because of the competitiveness of Chinese manufactures. This is not limited to North America. China’s commercial and industrial might has an effect on different spheres of the international scene given its undeniable role as a world player. The unstoppable Asian locomotive expresses itself in many forms and trends, all linked in different ways to the globalization of the economy. Probably the most emblematic are

* Professor and researcher at the Economic Department of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (uam), Iztapalapa campus.

the changes in the international division of labor that turned the millennia-old homeland of President Mao Zedong into the “world’s factory,” supplying an immense gamut of merchandise with both high and low value added, according to whether they were capital- or labor-intensive. According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, China is the new world giant in the auto sector with a production quota of 10.98 million vehicles in 2009 and a projected output of more than 14 million by the end of 2010. Its closest competitor, Japan, coming in second worldwide, produced 7.51 million units in 2009, while the convalescent U.S. car industry put out 5.62 million. By 2014, Chinese yearly production for the world market will have reached a little over 19 million.1 15

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•

Graph 1 Canada, Mexico and China. Exports to U.S. 2001-2008

The enormous competitiveness of China’s manufactures has allowed it to swiftly achieve an extensive presence in nafta partners’ markets. This has caused an effect of double substitution of Canadian and Mexican goods by Chinese goods.

353.8

350 Billions of U.S. dollars

A second way the Asian power’s influence can be seen is the changes in relative international market prices of tradeables. China’s undeniable competitiveness also generates changes in trade patterns for the regional economic blocs, whether it be Europe, Asia, or North America. Its impact on trade among Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. is so huge that it is now creating well-founded doubts about the North American Free Trade Agreement’s viability, the topic of this article.

400 302.2

331.9

300 252.8

250

233.1

227.3 183.8

200 150

223.4 163.2

136.4

100 50

54.4

0 2001

2002

2003 Canada

2004

2005

Mexico

2006

2007

2008

China

Source: Designed by the author using data from International Trade Statistics, unctad/wto, 2009.

Who Will Stop China’s Competitiveness And Its Effects on nafta? The enormous competitiveness of China’s manufactures —mainly, but not exclusively, from international corporations with plants there— has allowed it to swiftly achieve an extensive presence in nafta partners’ markets, as well as in other regions. This has caused an effect of double substitution of Canadian and Mexican goods by Chinese goods. Chinese merchandise continues displacing Mexican and Canadian goods in the U.S. market and even at home, in what are considered their “natural,” domestic markets. This second effect also deepens unemployment and exerts downward pressure on wages in Canada, Mexico, and even in the United States.2 It is a good idea to look at the magnitude of the effects of Chinese competitiveness on North America’s trilateral trade as a world economic trend set in motion by the Asian giant. In 2001, manufactured goods from China imported to the U.S. were valued at US$54 billion. This figure tripled by 2005, totaling US$163 billion, and the same dynamic con tinued so that in 2008, the number reached US$252 billion. Meanwhile, Canada’s exports to the U.S. in 2008 came to US$353 billion, a considerably larger sum, but one that is con tinuing to decelerate (see Graph 1). The rhythm of expansion of Chinese trade has been prac tically irresistible. Let’s look at how it has developed. From 1994 to 2008, its exports to the U.S. grew at a rate of 20 percent a year; almost twice the average growth of Mexican exports to 16

the U.S. in the same period (11.4 percent). Canada, the United States’ first partner, had a lower growth rate, with 7.13 percent a year. Chinese exports’ dynamism explains why it has captured a growing segment of imports into the U.S.3 In the context of the U.S. and world recession, Chinese exports continued growing albeit more slowly. However, they continued their upward trend, expanding their market segment. The long-term performance of Chinese trade, then, can be considered traumatic for U.S. preferential partners. As we have seen, a 20-percent-a-year export growth rate sug gests that the advantages and tariff breaks that nafta offers its signers and that constitute disadvantages for other countries have by no means been an impenetrable barrier for Chinese manufactures. From this point of view, we can see that China’s industrial and commercial clout may significantly impact on an initial decline of the U.S. market as a key com ponent of the North American economic region. We should remember that the United States has been the dynamic axis of nafta’s trilateral trade as well as that of the world. Capital and commercial exchanges between Canada and Mexico have gradually gained in importance. However, their commercial value, nearly US$21 billion a year, is less than 10 percent of the value of Canadian exports to the U.S. (US$354 billion in 2008). This means that nafta’s fate con tinues to depend on the dynamism of U.S. consumers and a sustained recovery of the economy, something by no means guaranteed, despite the advances so far.4

E conomy

Today there is a latent risk that Canada, the United States’ strategic trade partner, will be pushed out of the number-one spot by China. In fact, this is already happening. This suggests that nafta may be starting to become exhausted or even displaced in fulfilling its most elementary objective: intensifying trade and investments within North America.5

(US$2.88 billion), though in 2004, they had already skyrocketed to US$14 billion. In the following four years, purchases of goods from China continued on the rise, and by 2008 were close to US$35 billion. This figure contrasts with the value of Mexican exports to China (US$2.05 billion in 2008) and its trade deficit (US$32.71 billion). This trade gap has been financed by Mexico’ trade surplus vis-à-vis the U.S. and Canada (see Graph 3).

The Other Side of the Same Coin: Canada And Mexico’s Trade Deficit with China

0 Billions of U.S. dollars

The reduction of Canada’s market segment in the United States correlates to the growing weight of Chinese exports in the Canadian domestic market. This trend has increased over the last 10 years and created a negative trade balance, which in 2001 reached US$5 billion, and by 2007 had quintupled to almost US$27 billion. Canada’s trade deficit with China has been compensated by its positive trade balance with the rest of the world, espe cially the United States. However, the international financial crisis and the U.S. recession drastically changed this. By the end of 2009, Canada was facing a global trade deficit of US$26.92 billion, compared to its US$24.37-billion surplus in 2008, one year before the U.S. recession.6 What we are seeing is Chinese exports’ swift penetration of the Canadian market, with negative effects for productive sectors and unemployment levels, considered one of the Canadian economy’s biggest weaknesses. Bilateral Mexico-China trade looks similar: the Mexican economy also shows an increasing deficit and competitiveness indices that in some cases are lower than Canada’s (see Graph 2).

Graph 2 Canada’s Trade Balance with China (1998-2007) -5

-3.5 -5.5 -9.8

-10

-13.3

-15

-18.5

-20

-23.7

-25

-27.0

-30

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Source: Designed by the author with data from Statistics Canada, www40. statcan.gc.ca/101/cst01/gblec02-eng.htm.

The countries most affected by the dual substitution effect are the ones with an export pattern similar to China’s, like Mexico and Canada in some of their main sectors. Graph 3 Mexico’s Trade Balance with China (2000-2008) 40

In 2007, Mexico’s exports to the United States came to US$223 billion, less than China’s (US$234 billion), displacing Mexico from its strategic position as the U.S.’s second trade partner, which it had consolidated under nafta. In this reshuffle, disadvantageous for Mexico, we can see the magnitude of the transformations in trade, capital, and technology flows worldwide. Mexico-China bilateral trade results are also a matter for concern. This can be seen in the long-term performance of imports from China, which in 2000 were relatively low

34.8

30 Billions of U.S. Dollars

Evolution of Mexico’s Trade With the U.S. and China

24.4

20 10 0 -10

14.4 6.3

2.9

-5.6 -13.4

-20

-22.7

-30 -40

2.0

1.7

1.0

0.7

0.3 -2.6

-32.7

2000

2001

2002 Exports

2003

2004 Imports

2005

2006

2007

2008

Trade Balance

Source: Designed by the author using data from Mexican Ministry of the Economy and the World Trade Organization,” Estadísticas de Comercio Internacional,” July 2010, www.economia.gob.mx/economia/p _Estadisticas_de_Comercio_Internacional.

V oices of M exico

•

This scenario poses the need for Mexico and Canada to revise trade promotion strategies and policies directed at intensifying bilateral trade and cooperation. Why is this dual substitution of Canadian and Mexican manufactures by Chinese products happening? Both countries share a characteristic: their economies revolved largely around the U.S. economy. However, Canada has had a trade surplus with the U.S. and the rest of the world, in addition to being a net exporter of capital. Mexico’s trade with Canada and the U.S. also has a surplus, but its total trade with the world shows a deficit that it finances with its position as a net receiver of foreign capital. In this context, the countries most affected by the dual substitution effect are the ones with an export pattern similar to China’s, like Mexico and Canada in some of their main sectors. In this sense, Canada, Mexico, and China are considered competing economies in the U.S. market in industries like auto, auto parts, electronics, electro-domestic appliances, and computers. In precisely these kinds of goods, Chinese industry has advantages that make it highly competitive and allow it to penetrate international markets. Amidst intense competition in international markets, Mex ico’s trade position is critical. Its loss of competitiveness in manufactured goods can be explained by lags in education, training, research, infrastructure, and transportation. From the institutional standpoint, the business and investment climate is being gravely disrupted by the growing insecurity and outof-control criminal violence, mainly in the northern and cen tral part of the country. Business people face an increasingly adverse climate for actually doing business, as a result of a new kind of corporation with transnational operations protected by a huge financial, military power. The drug traffickers have shown themselves to be highly integrated into the production, distribution, and marketing of hard and soft drugs. These corporations have the direct or indirect collaboration of groups in Mexico’s police forces and very often benefit from the ineffectiveness of public administration officials on all levels, or what they simply do not do. As we know, insecurity, criminal violence, and corruption create a severe crisis in public institutions and the federal government itself. All this accelerates the loss of the 18

nation’s economic competitiveness. In addition, companies have to make expenditures that raise their operating costs: in security technology, protection, and private security forces. This is a very sensitive topic that liberal analysts rarely consider when they look at the state of business in Mexico.

The Impact of the U.S. Recession And China’s Competitiveness on nafta Canada and Mexico’s big dependence on the U.S. market constitutes both a strength and a vulnerability, according to what phase of the business cycle the U.S. is in. For Canada, that market represents 78 percent of its exports, and for Mex ico, 83 percent. Under these conditions, the recent U.S. recession caused a retreat in output, employment, and earnings for all nafta partners, but Mexico had the worst of it (see Table 1). In 2008, Mexico’s exports to the United States reached US$291 billion, but by the end of 2009, they had plummeted to US$229 billion, that is, a 30 percent drop. In turn, this spurred a contraction in production, which gave gdp a 6.5 percent negative growth rate, the lowest in the world after Russia. Actually, Mexico’s exports to the U.S. were already losing steam. From 2003 to 2008, they expanded 10.2 percent a year, while China’s grew 24.12 percent a year in that same period. The long-term decline that Canadian and Mexican products were experiencing in the U.S. market became sharper when the bottom dropped out of U.S. economic activity and consumers stopped demanding imports. This impact of the

Table 1 Impact of the Recession on nafta Partners Growth Rate (%)

2008

2009

2010*

United States

gdp Inflation

0.4 3.8

-2.5 -0.4

2.7 1.7

Canada

gdp Inflation

0.4 2.4

-2.6 0.1

2.6 1.3

Mexico

gdp Inflation

1.3 5.1

-6.8 5.4

4.0 3.5

* Estimates for 2010. Source: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Fund, January 2010, http://blogimfdirect.org/tag/world-economic-outlook/.

E conomy

crisis has confirmed the risks of dependence and the resulting vulnerability of the Canadian and particularly the Mexican economies vis-à-vis U.S. business cycles.7

flows between Canada and Mexico reveal a great deal of potential for development if we do not lose sight of the fact that both economies complement each other. Notes

Does nafta Offer Mexico And Canada Alternatives? Mexico and Canada have lost important market segments in the United States and domestically due to the competitiveness of Chinese exports. This trend opens up the question about the regional trade integration of North America. In fact, nafta’s limits in fostering trilateral trade have been accentuated by the U.S. economic recession. This scenario poses the need for Mexico and Canada to revise trade promotion strategies and policies directed at in tensifying bilateral trade and cooperation. Both nations need to move ahead and diversify their markets more in Latin America and the Asian Pacific, the main driving force of world economic recovery. For Mexico, the Canadian market is particularly interesting because of the size of the demand for goods and services generated by its ethnic and cultural diversity, plus other factors like seasonal climate variations and the population’s high income levels, all of which influences consumer and preference patterns. The still low trade levels and financial

Excélsior (Mexico City), August 24, 2010, p. N-3. José Luis de la Cruz Gallegos and José Antonio Núñez Mora, “Importaciones de eua: posibles efectos de la competencia china para México,” Alfredo Sánchez Daza, comp., Proceso de integración económica de México y el mundo (Mexico City: uam Azcapotzalco/Eón, 2005). 3 Boletín de la Secretaría de Economía (Mexico City), August 2009, and “Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators 2009,” http://www.adb.org/ Documents/Books/Key_Indicators/2009/pdf/Key-Indicators-2009.pdf. [Editor’s Note.] 4 International Trade Statistics, unctad/wto, 2009, http://www.wto.org/ english/res_e/statis_e/its2009_e/its09_toc_e.htm. [Editor’s Note.] 5 Ramiro de la Rosa, “Comercio e integración económica: el vínculo MéxicoEstados Unidos y la competencia china por el mercado norteamericano,” Ricardo Buzo, Enrique Pino, and Ana Teresa Gutiérrez, comps., Enfrentando el cambio. Estrategias de inserción de los países de la Cuenca del Pacífico en la posguerra fría (Mexico City: uam Azcapotzalco/Eón, 2008). 6 Statistics Canada, “International Economic Account 2009,” http://www40. statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/gblec02a-eng.htm. 7 Enrique Pino Hidalgo, “Tendencias del comercio y las inversiones entre Canadá y México,” Gregorio Vidal and Arturo Guillén, comps., Globaliza ción y regionalización. Economía y sustentabilidad (Mexico City: Miguel Ángel Porrúa/uam Iztapalapa, 2008). 1 2

Further Reading Enrique Dussel Peters, The Implications of China’s Entry into the WTO for Mexico, Global Issue Papers no. 24, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, November 2005, http://www.boell.de/downloads/weltweit/GIP-DUSSEL-No24.pdf.

NORTH AMERICAN ISSUES

Eating Patterns in Mexican and U.S. Marginalized Groups in the 1940s

Akhtar Soomro/REUTERS

Bernardo Olmedo Carranza*

Introduction “Mesoamerica has been the origin and center of genetic diversity of some of humanity’s most important food crops. Suffice it to mention just grains like maize and beans, plus other crops like tomatoes, chili peppers, squash, amaranth, cacao, vanilla, different cacti, and foods made from insects and edible mushrooms as merely a sample of the food and nutritional wealth our region has contributed to the world.”1 A 1940s study of the poorest population in the United States contrasted with a similar one using the same research and analytical parameters but among residents of an indigenous * Researcher at the unam Institute for Economic Research. bolmedo@servidor.unam.mx.

community considered among the poorest in Mexico reveals the wealth of Mesoamerican eating patterns. The indigenous community located in the semi-desert area of the Mez quital Valley in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, with its particular consumption patterns and cultural identity, is contrasted with the eating patterns constructed in U.S. society, a prism of diverse cultures that also generates a specific way of eating that is not only low in nutrients, but particularly harmful. The six-decade-old study of the United States showed the detrimental effects of eating habits based on what today is known as “junk food.” The Mexican sample, on the other hand, revealed the beneficial effects of a food culture based on the consumption of natural foods in accordance with the Mesoamerican food economy, apparently “austere,” but suited

M exico -U.S.

to this population’s basic needs, using fundamentally white maize and its derivatives, beans, chili peppers, tortillas, and pulque (a beverage made from fermented agave sap). Unfortunately, due to a process involving both imitation and marketing-induced subjection and disinformation by huge multinational corporations, particularly from the United States, the benefits of an ancient Mesoamerican tradition have been severely transformed. Second only to the U.S. population, Mex ico’s inhabitants are the world’s most obese, with the corre sponding negative impact on their individual health and the country’s development. According to this study, the diet of one of the poorest sectors in Mexico was highly nutritious and resulted in good teeth with none of the problems of obesity, high cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, or other harmful substances. Neither was there any hypertension, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity, or caries. The indigenous population studied did not have deficiencies —but rather even excessive natural production— of calcium, vitamin C, and other nutrients derived from the consumption of vegetables and meat, even if it was of tiny species like insects, with high protein content.

Nutrition and Culture Appropriate nutrition, plus efficient, broad health coverage, creates a less costly public health system because it produces a healthier population. Thus, we underline the importance of local food cultures —in this case the anthropologically delimited and broadened out Mesoamerican one— as opposed to the standardized, homogeneous Western pattern of consumption disseminated as a result of the internationalization and transnationalization of food production and consumption. Generally speaking, our local cultures are not improvised: they are the result of diverse factors and have generated their own forms of survival and development using the resources available. A culture generally depends on what it finds around it in nature. Due to the development of communications and trade, some cultures adopt aspects of others, but these do not become predominant. Paradoxically, these same advances have left local cultures extremely vulnerable and, in certain cases, deprived of their originality, or worse, having lost their identity altogether. Today, this phenomenon is strikingly evident in the case of Mexico. We must not forget the close historic link between

ancient Mexican culture and the nutritional prototype of the American Way of Life, disseminated worldwide: so-called junk food. It has been proven that this kind of transnational eating pattern causes malnutrition, disease, and other new evils in previously local cultures. For the purposes of this essay, we will cite some results of a survey on nutrition done in 1943 and 1944 in the Mez quital Valley by American Richmond Anderson.2 His study produced rather surprising results, since the region where it was carried out is historically one of the country’s poorest and most backward. This study came after another done shortly before in the United States that sampled marginalized sectors of the population. That is what made it seem possible to compare it with Mexico. However, the enormous difference is that the Mexican target population had an ancestral food culture history: the Otomís from the Mezquital Valley, a region lacking certain resources, among them water, but where the popu-

There is a close historic link between ancient Mexican culture and the nutritional prototype of the American Way of Life, but this kind of transnational eating pattern causes malnutrition, disease, and other new evils in previously local cultures.

lation’s diet was made up of foods found in their semi-desert surroundings. Since pre-Hispanic times, these people have consumed an apparently small variety of foods, basically of plant origin. The study omits products of animal origin since what it found was very small species (small animals and insects) that still exist, but are less and less common. It should be pointed out that some of these have become highly prized, costly gourmet products.

The Results The survey is very revealing. In terms of caloric consumption, the social group studied in Mexico was slightly below that reported in a similar poll done at the same time in Mexico City, but curiously on a level closer to what was found in certain regions of the United States. However, the average 21

V oices of M exico

•

calorie intake of Mezquital Valley residents was higher than that of Afro-Americans in the regions studied. Given the fact that the Otomí indigenous people are slender and short of stature, on the average, their calorie intake was higher than their basic requirements. The energy they consumed came from a diet relatively high in carbohydrates and low in fats and proteins —although the protein count is quite debatable after looking again at the importance of insects as an enormous protein source. A substantial part of this energy came from a pre-Hispanic beverage that, despite its production and consumption having dropped, can still be found in Mesoamerica: pulque. It is derived from an agave plant related to the one used to make tequila, mescal, and innumer able other beverages, but with a much lower alcohol content and different nutritional characteristics. The average protein consumption of the Mexican indigenous group was 80 percent of what the U.S. National Research Council (nrc) recommended at the time, even though Appropriate nutrition, plus efficient broad health coverage, creates a less costly public health system because it produces a healthier population. So, we underline the importance of local food cultures as opposed to the standardized, homogeneous Western pattern of consumption. only 4.8 percent was of animal origin. Not even pregnant or nursing women had serious protein deficiencies. Generally speaking the protein nutrition of the Mezqui tal Valley Otomís was good. Their main source was tortillas (75 percent), followed by beans and pulque. It was thought that the insufficient growth of these people may have been due to deficiencies in the quantity or quality of the protein they consumed. Few clinical signs of vitamin A deficiency were found. Their thiamin consumption was even higher than nrc recommendations, despite the high consumption of carbohydrates. Nevertheless, their riboflavin and niacin consumption was low —only 41 percent of the recommended amount for the former— but without dropping to such a serious level that they were in danger of getting pellagra (today we know that nia cin is produced by corn when mixed with calcium oxide slaked with water to soften it in what is called the nixtamalización process). 22

Average vitamin C intake was, on the contrary, quite a bit higher than the recommended amount (142 percent); in adults, this was due to pulque consumption. Blood tests showed adequate results compared to those habitually found in the United States. Anemia was uncommon, indicating that iron consumption was rather high. Today we know that high levels of iron are compensated by high levels of vitamin C intake, and the traditional diet, a reflection of the food culture of the social group studied 65 years ago, was already part of their wise daily food equilibrium. On the other hand, average calcium intake was 85 percent of that recommended at the time by the nrc, a level then considered adequate. This is why no cases of rickets or other calcium-deficiency-related diseases were found. The average consumption of phosphorus was adequate, as was the calciumphosphorus ratio. Both elements came specifically from tortilla consumption. The researchers considered at the time that it was not necessary to measure vitamin D consumption among the indigenous group given their great exposure to sunlight, since, as is well known, this is a natural factor in fixing calcium in the human body.

Conclusions The diet of the Otomís studied showed very good levels — higher than nrc recommended— of vitamin A, thiamin, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and iron. Calcium levels were found to be slightly low, but satisfactory. The consumption of proteins, calories, and niacin was con sidered slightly low, from the point of view of their quality, particularly the niacin, associated with high consumption of maize. Riboflavin consumption was the only indicator that was insufficient enough to produce clinical signs, although, in summary, only scant clinical indications of nutritional deficiencies were found. Although the Otomís are short and slender —but not in the extreme— and the children were short and slow to develop, it was not possible to determine if this was due to nutri tional deficiencies or it was a racial trait. Given the clinical results, it may well have been associated with the latter or with other factors that had not yet been discovered almost seven decades ago. Illnesses like hypertension and others that by then the U.S. population was already suffering from were practically

M exico -U.S.

non-existent among Otomís and mestizos. Their teeth were excellent and problems of gingivitis were associated more with the almost non-existent use of toothbrushes than with their nutrition. Almost 50 percent of adults had perfect teeth, and the rate of pyorrhea was low. Even though their diet was high in carbohydrates, they consumed practically no sugars. Their intake of meat, dairy, fruit, and vegetables was extremely low, but their food culture, based on tortillas, pulque, beans, chili peppers, and other plants available in the arid, sterile soil of the Mezquital Valley, was generally adequate and sufficient, and their noticeable deficiencies easy to remedy. From this we can conclude that the food culture of these indigenous people, which is fun damentally the same as that of the Mexican people as a whole, enriched in the different regions by other foods available in each locality —vegetables and animals— has been appropriate, balanced, healthy, and wise. The case of tortillas and the corn dough with which they are made is unique in the world. Corn by itself does not have great nutritional value. However, it is the nixtamalización pro cess it undergoes that enriches the end product. Even though its carbohydrate count is high (about 45 percent of its total weight), these are unrefined carbohydrates, and even when tortilla production is mechanized, “whole” corn kernels are still the raw material. Recently, in the process to make the corn dough, other nutrients have been added like prickly pear cac tus flour made from this highly nutritional plant with excellent digestive properties. Tortillas are also very moist (about 40 percent moisture), with high levels of proteins and fiber and low fat levels. They also have phosphorus, calcium, mag nesium, iron, zinc, copper, magnesium, sodium, potassium, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin —the latter was not very easily de tected in the 1940s when the comparative study was done— folic acid, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6. Beans are an important source of vegetable protein, complemented with maize and a small amount of chili peppers. Suffice it to mention that no matter what the variety, fresh or dried chili peppers contain proteins, carbohydrates, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, retinol (vitamin A), very few fats, and are an important source of vitamin C. The effects of this particular variety of capsicum give it wide-ranging, diverse effectiveness for problems stemming from rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis. In summary, the results of the survey are surprising and lead us to a reflection about the need to recuperate much of our forgotten Mesoamerican culture, to keep alive practices

that fortunately still survive, like the production and consumption of tortillas, beans, chili peppers and pulque, for the benefit of Mexican society. We should rediscover, recover, and preserve our ancestral, traditional food culture; take advantage of the healthiest aspects of other non-traditional foods both from Mexico and abroad; promote the consumption of whole-grain products; and create a counterculture that will steer us away from transnationalized eating patterns based on high consumption of fats, salt, carbohydrates, and refined sugars and/or sugar substitutes, as well as other highly harmful agents. We must give our natural foods the status of “appropriate for healthy consumption,” to favor individual health and that of society. It is important to underline this, which is linked to the concluding reflection of Anderson’s study: “You get the impression that, despite the sterility and poverty of the region, over many centuries, its inhabitants have developed eating habits and a way of life adapted to that environment. Any attempt at changing it would be a mistake as long as their economic and social conditions are not improved and truly more favorable conditions achieved.”3 Our purpose is precisely to reproduce the traditional food culture on all levels of Mexican society, both in Mexico and abroad, through the so-called “magic foods,”4 “ethnic and nostalgia products,”5 particularly sought out by those who have mi grated to the United States, and to avoid products that are bad for the health of both the individual and the collective.

Notes 1

ctavio Paredes López, Fidel Guevara Lara, and Luis Arturo Bello Pérez, O Los alimentos mágicos de las culturas indígenas mesoamericanas, first edition (Mexico City: fce/sep/Conacyt/cab, 2006), p. 9.

evista de Investigación Clínica 2, vol. 45 (March-April 1993), Mexico R City, published by the Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición Dr. Salvador Zubirán; Bernardo Olmedo Carranza, “El Valle del Mezquital: ¿nutrición inadecuada? El Financiero (Mexico City) May 19, 25 and 26, 1993; Margaret Mead and C. E. Guthe, “Manual for the Study of Food Habits,” Bulletin of the National Research Council (Washington, D.C.), 1945. Margaret Mead has been cited as the author of one of the pioneering works on food habits in the United States. See also Míriam Bertrán Vilá, Cambio alimentario e identidad de los indígenas mexicanos (Mexico City: Programa Universita rio México Nación Multicultural/Coordinación de Humanidades, unam, 2005), p. 20.

Revista de Investigación Clínica, op. cit.

Octavio Paredes López et al., op. cit.

or more on “ethnic and nostalgia” products, see another article by Ber F nardo Olmedo, “Latin American Migrant Markets in North America. ‘Ethnic and Nostalgia’ Products,” Voices of Mexico 86 (Mexico City), pp. 57-60. [Editor’s Note.]

100 years of history

From Independence To the Revolution

Six Views from the Present

eflecting on the events that molded contemporary Mexico implies profound knowledge of the historical period in question. The six articles in this dossier were written by specialists in each of the historical stages between the last years of New Spain’s colonial regime and the Mexican Revolution, culminating in a constitutional framework that incorporated a series of aspirations that can be traced back to the thinking of the eighteenthcentury Enlightenment. The Voices of Mexico reader will find in these essays interpretations that emphasize certain topics more than others. They must be read as pieces that invite you to delve more deeply into the vast historiography dealing with the formative years of a project that has sought the consolidation of a national state.

The vignettes used in this section are from the book Parafernalia e Independencia (Mexico City: Conaculta/Secretaría de Cultura Cd. de México/Fundación Cultural de la Ciudad de México/cie/Fundación 2010 Conmemoraciones, 2008).

New Spain and Independence Alfredo Ávila*

Old and New Spain at the hands of Religion to avenge Fernando VII.

n the early nineteenth century, in the lands that are now Mexico, a society was growing dominated by the Spanish monarchy. Strictly speaking, New Spain had no borders. The sovereignty of the Catholic kings and queens reached as far as their Spanish, indigenous, and mestizo sub jects lived. The faculties of Mexico’s viceroy included ad *Researcher at the unam Institute for Historical Research.

ministering justice, governing, making war, and collecting taxes. The Audiences of Mexico City and Guadalajara were the highest tribunals in the land. The intendentes headed the governments in each of the provinces, aided by their lieu tenants. The dioceses of Mérida, Oaxaca, Puebla, Michoa cán, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Durango, together with the archdiocese of Mexico City, were charged with the spir itual guidance of a little over six million Catholics.

L iterature

Strictly speaking, New Spain had no borders. The sovereignty of the Catholic kings and queens reached as far as their Spanish, indigenous, and mestizo subjects lived.

Seals used by the caudillos of Independence, Don José María Morelos and Don Ignacio López Rayón. Don J. E. Hernández Dávalos Collection.

Numerous corporations provided their members with privileges in a society with no guarantee of equality before the law. The king bestowed privileges on all his subjects to protect them in exchange for their loyalty. In practice, many of these privileges ended by hurting those involved. The in digenous peoples (called the “Indian Republics”)1 made up more than half of the population. More than 4,000 towns with their own governments were exempt from taxes, pay ing tribute instead; they had control over their natural re sources, but were subordinated to the lieutenants. Those with the most privileges were the whites, called Spaniards regardless of whether they had been born in the Iberian Peninsula or in the Americas, as only a few had been born in Spain. They came to about 16 percent of the population. The rest was mestizo, many descended from Africans, who had no privileges at all. The economy of New Spain was very diverse. Thousands of towns lived only from agricultural production as they had been doing since before the Spanish arrived. Large tianguis (open-air markets) and fairs were hubs for regional trade networks. Major mining centers like Taxco, Real del Monte, Bolaños, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato generated enormous riches that stimulated the economy of regions like the Bajío or Guadalajara. Large mine-owners and some merchants took advantage of this prosperity to accumulate fabulous fortunes. At the same time, however, as Alexander von Humboldt ob

served, millions of people were mired in poverty. The bishop of Michoacán, Antonio de San Miguel, and his most impor tant followers, like Manuel Abad y Queipo or Miguel Hi dalgo, suggested reforms to solve these problems: freeing up commerce and production and giving rights to everyone re gardless of race. The Spanish crown also took advantage of New Spain’s prosperity. Wars between Great Britain and France had forced Spain to take sides, and it needed increasing amounts of money to cover its military expendi tures. In 1803, the Spanish government forced its American colonies’ treasuries to pay their foreign creditors. A year later, it decreed that the resources of the ecclesiastic tri bunals would be sent to the crown to cover debts. Many people realized that this would be disastrous for New Spain’s economy, since the ecclesiastic tribunals gave credit to landowners, merchants, and mine owners. The 1804 decree caused many people to lose their properties, in addition to cutting off fresh loans. Nevertheless, neither the social nor the economic crisis ex plains the fall of the Spanish government in North America. Generally speaking, the population was loyal to the monar chy and its institutions. A political crisis was necessary for this to change. In 1808, the conflicts in the Spanish royal family threat ened Napoleon’s plans in Europe. The French emperor forced King Carlos IV and his son, Prince Fernando de Bor bón, to renounce the Spanish throne in exchange for privi leges, properties, and pensions. Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned king of Spain. Many Spaniards accepted this change since the new monarch was enlightened and a re former. He even offered Spain a constitution. However, Spain was losing its independence to the French empire. For this reason, many did not recognize the Bourbon abdi cations. Throughout Spain, government councils or “juntas” were formed that fought to keep the kingdom independent. 27

V oices of M exico

•

The same thing happened in some cities in the Americas like Caracas or Buenos Aires. In New Spain, the Mexico City government also rejected the abdications and asked the vice roy to disobey any new government set up in Spain. In July and August 1808, several meetings were organized by Viceroy José de Iturrigaray. Some people proposed setting up a council of authorities to govern the kingdom in the absence of the king. Others favored recognizing one of the government councils that had been established in Spain. These proposals were discussed from Campeche to Chi huahua. Everyone declared themselves against Bonaparte and for Prince Fernando, but no one could agree on the most urgent matter: who should govern New Spain. None of the governments set up in Spain had the right to govern the Amer icas, but the main corporations opposed forming their own government. In September, a group of merchants violently deposed Viceroy Iturrigaray and set up a government that threw its allegiance to the Seville Council. Protests broke out im mediately. The merchants had deposed an official ap pointed by the king, and there was no reason to obey the government established in Seville. To keep order, the new viceroy dispersed the criollo troops billeted in the prov ince of Veracruz. Conspiracies spread throughout the viceroyalty. In February 1809, a newssheet was pub lished proclaiming independence. In December a con spiracy in Michoacán was uncovered. In early 1810, Manuel Abad y Queipo warned that social conditions, the political crisis, and the lack of reform would bring about an insurrec tion that would lead to independence, which the new Viceroy Francisco Xavier Venegas could not avert. In September, the authorities discovered another conspiracy, this time in Querétaro. The participants decided to stage an insurrection to avoid being taken prisoner. Parish priest Miguel Hidalgo and criollo Captain Ignacio Allende headed a rebellion that spread in a few weeks through Guanajuato, the viceroyalty’s most prosperous region. A severe agricultural crisis spurred many people to rise up in arms. In a short time, dozens of towns or villas had joined the insurrection. Criollo govern ments were set up in the provinces of Guanajuato, Micho acán, Guadalajara, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas. Miguel Hidalgo proposed convening a congress with representa tives of the villas, an idea that seemed acceptable to many. However, the rebellion’s vio lence dissuaded many from sup porting the rebels. At the end 28

of September, the city of Guanajuato witnessed a horrible slaughter, which would be repeated even in cities that had opened their doors to the insurgents, like Guadalajara. Thousands of criollos, mestizos, and indigenous sup ported the insurrection, but thousands of others also readied themselves to oppose it. Both Spanish and Americas-born members of the clergy preached against Miguel Hidalgo. Merchants, mine owners, and landowners refused to partici pate in such a violent undertaking. The viceregal army, headed by Félix Calleja, was made up of ranchers, peons, and agri cultural day laborers just like Miguel Hidalgo’s forces, but had a different strategy. In January 1811, Calleja’s disciplined troops defeated the insurgents outside Guadalajara. Calleja readied himself to form armed groups of men in each villa and city to sustain the viceregal government. Hidalgo, Allende, and their followers fled to the North, where they would be caught, judged, and executed by firing squad.

L iterature

Neither the social nor the economic crisis explains the fall of the Spanish government in North America. The population was fairly loyal to the monarchy and its institutions. A political crisis was necessary for this to change.

The criollos who wanted to govern their provinces saw an opportunity in the Spanish government itself. In 1809, a Central Council had been set up in Spain, which ordered the meeting of a parliament known as the “Cortes.” While in principle, only Spanish deputies had been convened, it soon became clear that this government would only be via ble if they included representatives of the American domin ions. Naturally, the Spaniards were not willing to give the criollos the number of deputies that would have been pro portional to their population, but only called for one deputy for each province in the Americas. Nevertheless, the criollos were willing to accept this offer in order to participate. Elec tions were held in 1810. Soon, deputies from almost all the provinces of New Spain left for Cádiz. Some of them, like Miguel Ramos Arizpe, promoted local self-governing insti tutions. Others, like Manuel Beye de Cisneros and José Mi guel Guridi, fought for equality of Spaniards and those born in the Americas. The participation of the criollos was very im portant in this parliament, contributing to the writing of the 1812 Constitution and the new liberal institutions. Spain’s 1812 Constitution brought unprecedented chang es in the political culture of New Spain. The indigenous and the Spaniards would have the same civil rights. More than, 1,000 elected city councils would be set up in old villas and indigenous towns. Elections were held to choose provincial deputies and deputies for the Cortes. Freedom of press al lowed newspapers to be published and public debate to begin. However, the Spanish authorities obstructed these measures. Venegas suppressed freedom of the press and de layed the elections. In many places, the Constitution was not applied because of the war. As if that were not enough, the Spanish deputies to the Cortes were not willing to accept that there should be the same number of representatives from the Americas as from Spain. Arbitrarily, they decided that anyone of African descent would not be given rights or counted as part of the population, which was what determined the number of deputies for each province. Since in certain parts of the Americas, people of African descent were very

numerous, the number of deputies that these provinces could elect was reduced. For these reasons, some criollos who had considered the 1812 Constitution acceptable decided to throw their sup port to the insurgents. In 1811, Ignacio Rayón tried to cre ate an independent government, the National American Council. A short time later, José María Morelos decided to carry out a more ambitious plan: he created a Congress with deputies from the provinces of New Spain, which declared independence and promoted a Constitution of its own. This Congress was inspired in the 1812 Constitution, but orga nized the country as a republic. Thus, the insurgents’ main ideologues, like José María Cos and Carlos María de Busta mante, tried to turn the civil war into a war between two nations: Spain and the Mexican part of the Americas. In 1814, King Fernando VII abolished the Constitution and reestablished absolutism. This allowed the viceregal authorities to act more expeditiously against the insurgents. The numerous deaths caused by “mysterious fevers” in 1813 also limited the insurgents military capabilities. After José María Morelos was captured and executed by firing squad, the rebellion waned. The new viceroy, Juan Ruiz de Apoda ca, managed to defeat the expedition of the young Spanish

José María Morelos y Pavón.

Taken from La Bandera de México (Mexico City: Nacional Financiera, 1985), p. 117.

Vicente Guerrero and Agustín de Iturbide join forces.

commander Xavier Mina, who opposed absolutism. The au thorities offered pardons, which were accepted by many in surgents. In 1820, the viceregal government was no longer threatened by war. However, in the provinces, royalist com manders had been strengthened. In Monterrey, Joaquín Arredondo had the luxury of disobeying government orders. In Guadalajara, José de la Cruz was very powerful. It was no easy task to reestablish order after a decade of war. In 1820, Spain restored the Constitution. Many inhabit ants of New Spain thought equality of Spaniards and Amer ican residents should be demanded. A group of deputies, headed by Mariano Michelena, Lucas Alamán, and Loren zo de Zavala, proposed that three parliaments be established in the Americas, headed by Spanish princes, to maintain the unity of the Spanish monarchy and give the Americans selfgovernment. Their proposal was rejected, and they decided to return to Mexico. For his part, a young coronel, Agustín de Iturbide —who had participated in the hunt for the insurgents— made a similar proposal: set up a congress in Mexico and crown the king of Spain emperor. Iturbide’s Independence Plan satis fied privileged sectors who feared the reforms being imple 30

In early 1810, Manuel Abad y Queipo warned that social conditions, the political crisis, and the lack of reform would bring about an insurrection that would lead to independence.

mented in Spain, but also the liberals, because it offered them a constitutional government. Similarly, it won the support of Vicente Guerrero, the most im portant insurgent leader. The offer that all Amer icans, regardless of ethnic origin, would have political rights was very attractive. Many commanders, gover nors, ayuntamientos, and deputies began to accept Iturbide’s proposal. In September 1821, a government council wrote the declaration of independence. Mex ico had been born.

Notes 1

he term “republic” here is taken from the Latin res publica, or “public mat T ter,” and refers to a political body of a territory or community, and is not used in the modern sense of the word “republic.” [Translator’s Note.]

Basic Reading Alamán, Lucas, Historia de Méjico, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, 1848-1852). Ávila, Alfredo, Juan Ortiz Escamilla, and José Antonio Serrano, Actores y escenarios de la independencia. Guerra, pensamiento e instituciones 1808-1825, Enrique Florescano, coordinator (Mexico City: fce, 2010). Bustamante, Carlos María de, Cuadro histórico de la revolución mexicana, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, 1843). Guedea, Virginia, La independencia de México y el proceso autonomista novohispano (Mexico City: unam/Instituto Mora, 2001). Ortiz Escamilla, Juan, Guerra y gobierno. Los pueblos y la independencia de México (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla /Instituto Mora, 1997). Portillo Valdés, José María, Crisis atlántica. Autonomía e independencia en la crisis de la monarquía hispánica (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2006). Rojas, Rafael, La escritura de la independencia. El surgimiento de la opinión pública en México (Mexico City: Taurus/cide, 2003). Torre Villar, Ernesto de la, La Constitución de Apatzingán y los creadores del Estado Mexicano (Mexico City: unam, 1978). Villoro, Luis, El proceso ideológico de la revolución de independencia (Mex ico City: unam, 1977).

Independent, Inexperienced, and Disorganized Political Life in Mexico (1821-1855) María del Carmen Vázquez Mantecón*

The Mexican Republic in the first half of the nineteenth century.

will attempt here to briefly sketch like in an impressio nist painting what I think determined events in Mexico between 1821 and 1855. Many topics could be tackled in doing this, but given the need to pick among the most representative, I have opted to single out the vicissitudes of those in power in their attempts to consolidate the Mexican state. I will also look at the time and space where all this * Researcher at the unam Institute for Historical Research. Author of several books and articles about Mexico’s political and cultural history.

happened, giving geography its place: the changes in terri toriality, both internal and those due to external threats. I include the ups and downs of the economy, and a consider ation about the criollos, who held the affairs of their recently unveiled country in their hands. These issues have been part of my concerns and love for historical research and what I have written about up to now. This is where most of these reflections stem from. Mexican historiography of the first half of the nine teenth century was concerned with pointing out the terrible “national ills” that afflicted Mexico from 1821 on. This vi 31

sion of continuous failures —in each case written from a different perspective— contrasts with that of the historians of the last decades of the same century. The latter had been lucky enough to witness the outcome of the history of revo lutions and barracks revolts typical of Mexico after indepen dence. Armed with the victory of the 1867 Republic and the order and progress that it brought, they quickly dubbed the previous period “the years of anarchy.” Mexicans who lived through those turbulent days saw the creation of a constitutional monarchy with the regency that preceded it, three constitutions (the 1824 Federalist Constitution, later reformed in 1846; the so-called Consti tution of the Seven Laws of 1835, and the Organic Bases of 1843), which respectively sanctioned the existence of two federal republics and two centralized republics, and many gov ernments based on political plans or administrative schemes, some of which turned into true dictatorships. Except for Gua dalupe Victoria (1824-1828), none of the presidents served out their full terms. For this reason, interim or sub stitute presidents became unavoidable; most of those who sat in the president’s chair were mili tary men, and not a few, whether military or civilian, sat in it more than once, regardless of whether they had previously espoused an op posite set of principles to get there. The different Constitutions gave more power to Congress out of fear of despotism, so the presidents resorted to using extra ordinary powers. For its part, the judicial branch was never a counterweight to the executive or the legislature. It is impossible in so few pages to deal with each admin istration and its vicissitudes. Suffice it to say that between 1821 and 1855, the chief executive changed more than 30 times, with the resulting changes in ministers of state. This gives us an average of one president or executive power per year. They tried all forms of government, only to find to their confusion that none of them worked. The issues debated for decades were about whether they should be republicans or monar chists; followers of Iturbide or the Bourbons, of York or the Scots; federalists or centralists; representative democrats or oligarchs; liberals or conservatives (including all the possible degrees of each); and, among other things, small property own ers or in favor of communal property. During the first half of the nineteenth century, Mexico’s territory extended to the 42nd parallel to the north and to the border with Belize and Guatemala to the south. Only dur ing the time of the First Empire was Mexico united with 32

Between 1821 and 1855, the chief executive changed more than 30 times, with the resulting changes in ministers of state. This gives us an average of one president or executive power per year.

the country Central America, but it separated after Agustín I’s abdication in March 1823. At the time independence was achieved, the population is estimated to have been six mil lion, very badly distributed over that vast territory. And soon, that huge expanse was subjected to colonizing, expansionist interests that led to the loss of more than half of it (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, La Mesilla) between 1836 and 1854. By mid-century, the Mexican republic had a population of 7,661,919, of whom 200,000 lived in the capital. Approxi mately four million were indigenous, and the remaining 3.5 million were a minority European and criollo, and a major ity mestizo. Eighty percent of the population lived in poverty. Both internal and external borders were in constant flux. There was a frontier between “whites” and indigenous; be tween Mexicans and foreigners; between barbarians and the civilized; between sedentary people and nomads; between individuals and communities; between owners and the dispos sessed; and between some owners and others. The new di viding line to the North was finally fixed at the Rio Grande

Antonio López de Santa Anna, the caudillo who was in power several times between 1833 and 1855.

J. S. Hegi, The Cathedral and the Promenade of the Chains on Thursday of Easter Week, 1854.

or Río Bravo in 1856, the year in which the agreement both countries signed in 1848 ending the war between Mexico and the United States was ratified. The most complete expression of the indigenous and peasant rebellions in defense of their communal lands and their autonomy —which took place all over the country— in the period occupying us here was Yucatán’s Caste War. For “people of reason,” it was a true struggle between two dif ferent races, in which they argued that the indigenous were the ones who abhorred the “whites” because they did not want to submit to “white” laws of order and sociability. The whites feared this confrontation more than the invasion of the “Indian barbarians” from the North, whose outrages were seen as a struggle between barbarism and civilization, or, rather, between “property” and the pillaging of the nomadic tribes.1 In the end, those who maintained the need for indi vidual property would prevail, believing, like Manuel Payno, that “from the moment that the brigand has consummated his attack against property and has received its fruit, he is the new owner.”2 The economy fluctuated between a ban on imports that affected commerce, protecting the incipient textile indus try, and, on the other hand, supporting free trade, heedless of the country’s industrialization. Mexico exported silver, hemp, cochineal grain, logwood, indigo, vanilla, and sugar; it im ported almost everything it needed, plus luxury items. Mining,

which had declined during the War for Independence, bounced back a little with the investment of English capital. Since there was no money in the public coffers, taxes and fees were increased. The country was indebted internally and abroad, which led to Mexico’s weakness and impotency in the face of foreign interests —and our country sought recognition abroad— manifested not only in the military invasions of Spain (1829), France (1838), and the United States (18461848), but also in aggressive political and economic expan sionism and interventionism. Since there were no banks or institutions of credit, loans and foreign currency operations were always in the hands of loan sharks who speculated to the country’s detriment; and not only individuals fell into their clutches, but even government businesses. The disinterest of the majority of Mexicans accustomed them to political con vulsions, military revolts, barracks uprisings, foreign invasions, national and foreign wars, and filibusterism. The meager pub lic budget was used to pay and maintain an army that belea guered the country more than defended it, and fund the wages of the government bureaucracy, which found a way to thrive on the taxpayer’s money and, as Miguel Lerdo de Tejada pointed out, helped propagate anarchistic ideas.3 For their part, those in government were more interested in politics than in culture, education, or the country’s economy. In the opinion of historian Luis González, “After three de cades of independent life, Mexico, trounced, ragged, without 33

The economy fluctuated between a ban on imports that affected commerce, protecting the incipient textile industry, and, on the other hand, supporting free trade, heedless of the country’s industrialization.

any national cohesion, without peace, could only display with pride its intellectuals.”4 He was referring to José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, to Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza, to Andrés Quintana Roo, to José Joaquín Pesado, to Manuel Carpio in the front line, plus Bustamante, Mora, Zavala, and Alamán. And he added the importance of journalism as a genre, which ranged from the time of El Sol and El Águila, to that of El Siglo Diez y Nueve, El Monitor Republicano, El Tiempo, and El Universal. The lack of government can be explained in part by the situation of the clergy and the army. The vast economic power of the Mexican Catholic Church has already been pointed out, in addition to its unrelenting influence in Mexicans’ legal, social, moral, and spiritual matters. Its being a true rival for political power allowed it to use its economic wealth to sup port or bring down governments. On the other hand, the ills plaguing the army included, among other things, its up wardly-mobile, ambitious, privileged officer class. They came from having fought for the interests of the Spanish Crown, and then, from just joining the independence pact proposed by Agustín de Iturbide. Their favorite pastime was making revolutions in which they always won more promotions and prerogatives. Some authors have argued that that period was the time when caudillos reigned supreme, and this could also describe the mid-century. For Lucas Alamán, conservative politician and historian, the panorama of government in Mexico from 1822 to 1853 could be summed up in eight words: “the history of the revolutions of Santa Anna.”5 While it is true that Santa Anna was the victorious caudillo, this is partially the case because the other contenders (Agustín de Iturbide, Anastasio Bustamante, and Mariano Paredes, among many others) gave him plenty of room in the struggle for power, which almost always included disavowing rivals; alliances, some truly remarkable and contradictory; confrontations on the battlefield; and, finally, the proposal of new pacts that were unlikely to be lived up to. The optimism of 1821 ended by fading away only three decades later. In his resignation from the presidency in Jan 34

Agustín I, emperor of Mexico from 1822 to 1823. He became famous, however, as one of the liberators of Mexico.

uary 1853, moderate liberal Mariano Arista listed the ills plaguing the country: maritime customs offices invaded by contraband; the disappearance of tax monies in many plac es; the destruction of the government monopoly over tobacco; the rise in internal and foreign debt; deficit-ridden agricul ture; an illiterate majority; rural workers living in conditions of servitude; military officers who soaked up the little money in the public coffers; a reactionary, hoarding clergy; multiple caste wars and the failure to contain the “barbarian Indians”; a lack of police forces; the absence of morals in public admi nistration; and, above all, political instability. The liberals never stopped seeking progress for Mexico, with a project that underlined the need to become a federal, representative, popular republic, eliminating the privileges of the corpora tions by selling their goods, inviting foreigners to colonize and work unoccupied lands, subjecting the power of the clergy to the state, with a tamed army, and looking to the United States as the model to follow.

To find some sort of a remedy to these ills, around 1853 the conservatives also insisted on the importance of progress, but with their own vision of things. For them, progress could only be attained if material improvements were introduced. They saw the country as an organism with no arteries. So they proposed building roads, funded by private companies’ investments. They also fostered colonization by foreign, Catholic workers, who, together with the new roads, would renovate the country’s broken-down agriculture. They pro posed providing guarantees for labor and industry. In the field of politics, they dreamed of a monarchy, for which they sought the support of Europe, sustained by a powerful army and clergy. However, although they tried to order the existing legislation and to reform the administration, they achieved little because the flighty government that protected them (the sixth and last headed by Antonio López de Santa Anna) was ephemeral. Though given broad faculties, these were not sufficient for containing a liberal revolution begun by the moderates, known as the Ayutla Revolution (because it began in a town of that name), which took place between 1854 and 1855 and marked a change of direction of the his tory of power, in which criollo caudillos would no longer have any place. The historiography of the late nineteenth century con tributed greatly to forging the myth of a consolidated nation after the victory of the liberals in 1867. This is a fundamen tal doctrine of the contemporary Mexican state, whose rea son for being has been to harmonize the enormous jigsaw puzzle that had existed since time immemorial. However, this unifying process undoubtedly began before Mexico be came independent from Spain, and in 1821 took on new vigor. Both liberals and conservatives proposed integrating what the evangelizers called the “indigenous nations,” through indi vidual property, the Spanish language, political centralism, and Catholicism. From then on, several symbols key to our national being were created, which, in addition to the four matters I just mentioned, were an important symbolic, discursive legacy of that Mexican state founded by the criollos between 1821 and 1855. I am referring to the flag and its coat of arms, the celebra tion of the “cry of Independence” ceremony on September 15, the national anthem, and, among other things, the reinforce ment of other symbols from the religious sphere like the cult of Guadalupe, inherited from the so-called New Spain, criollo nationalism. The generation that lived through Independence and tried to form its own government gave the territory they

were born in a name and new borders, but, above all, it gave birth to a language and a political way of being that continues to be in force and is one of the most important components of that complex weave that identifies us as Mexicans.

notes I n Spanish, the word for “property” is also the word for “propriety,” thus indicating the close relationship between being an owner and being prop er. [Translator’s Note.] 2 Manuel Payno, Tratado de la propiedad, facsimile of the 1869 first edition (Mexico City: Secretaría de la Reforma Agraria, 1981), p. 13. 3 “Carta de Miguel Lerdo de Tejada a Antonio López de Santa Anna, abril de 1853,” Carlos J. Sierra, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada (1821-1861) (Mexico City: Dirección General de Prensa, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, 1961), p. 22. 4 Luis González, “El periodo formativo,” Historia mínima de México (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1974), p. 103. 5 Lucas Alamán, Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su Independencia en el año de 1808 hasta la época presente, vol. 5, facsimile of the 1852 Lara edition (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Eco nómica/Instituto Cultural Helénico, 1985), p. 686. 1

Basic Reading for the 1821-1855 Period Bustamante, Carlos María de, Apuntes para el gobierno del general Antonio López de Santa Anna (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Insti tuto Cultural Helénico, 1986). ______, Continuación del cuadro histórico, vol. 6 (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/Instituto Cultural Helénico, 1985). ______, El gabinete mexicano durante el segundo periodo de Bustamante hasta la entrega del mando a Santa Anna, 2. vols. (Mexico City: Fon do de Cultura Económica/Instituto Cultural Helénico, 1985). ______, El Nuevo Bernal Díaz del Castillo, o sea Historia de la in vasión de los angloamericanos en México, 2 vols. (Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1949). ______, Diario histórico de México, 1822-1848, CDs 1 and 2, Héctor Cuauhtémoc Hernán dez Silva and Josefina Zoraida Váz quez, eds. (Mexico City: ciesas/ El Colegio de México, 2003). Humboldt, Alexander von, Ensayo polí tico del reino de la Nueva España (Mexico City: Instituto Cultural Helé nico/Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1985). Mora, José María Luis, México y sus revoluciones, 3 vols. (Mexico City: Fon do de Cultura Económica/Instituto Cultural Helénico, 1986). ______, El clero, la educación y la libertad (Mexico City: Empresas Edito riales, 1949). ______, Revista política de las diversas administraciones que ha tenido la Repú blica hasta 1837 (Mexico City: Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1986). Olavaria y Ferrari, Enrique, “México independiente, 1821-1855,” México a través de los siglos, vol. 4 (Mexico City: Cumbre-Grolier, 1958). Rabasa, Emilio, La Constitución y la dictadura. Estudio sobre la organización política de México (Mexico City: Tipografía de Revista de Revistas, 1912). Zavala, Lorenzo, Ensayo histórico de las revoluciones de México desde 1808 hasta 1830, 2 vols. in one (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica/ Instituto Cultural Helénico, 1985).

The Significance of the Reform Period (1855-1862) Silvestre Villegas Revueltas*

Benito Juรกrez, defender of the Constitution and the rule of law.

hen the government of Juan Álvarez passed the Law of the Administration of Justice, or Ley Juá rez, in 1855, it meant that the victorious Ayutla Revolution had materialized in a legal reform that estab lished the equality of citizens before the law in criminal mat ters. This was a break with the old order in a society that, besides being divided into social classes, differentiated its legal proceedings, clearly revealing two estates above the rest of Mexicans (the clergy and the army). The immediate con sequence of this was the conservative rebellion that General Tomás Mejía began in the mountains of Querétaro under the banners of “religion and immunity!” These were the issues and actions on both sides that char acterize the period historiography has called the Reform. A little more than a month later, Ignacio Comonfort took office as president, and, with that, the second administration head ed by a southerner launched “the liberal reform that was the only one in the country’s interests.” This began with the cre ation of the Regulation on Freedom of the Press, whose author, José María Lafragua, argued that given the clampdown prevailing during Santa Anna’s dictatorship, the revolutioncum-government understood that one of the undeniable rights of Man was the individual’s freedom to express his opinions about public life. However, the Minister of the Interior added that criti cisms should not be anonymous: newspapers were obliged to report who the editor in charge was and include the names of their editorialists. The edict clarified that all administra tion actions could be criticized, but not the private life of public officials. The printing press had been and continued to be one of humanity’s great inventions. The press should include analysis and reflection, but newspapers should not turn into an arena of individual passions, much less repro duce the “howling” of political factionalism or encourage sedition, because that would be a perversion of the freedom of expression. Undoubtedly, the central reform of the period (1856-1857) was the Law on the Seizure of the Goods of Civil and Ec clesiastic Corporations, written by Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, “a solid radical, through and through,” who, as minister of finance worked for a moderate liberal administration. The law sparked dozens of pronouncements all over the country, was condemned from the pulpit, and shook many private individuals whose spirit was linked to religious orders but *Researcher at the unam Institute of Historical Research.

Undoubtedly, the central reform of the period was the Law on the Seizure of the Goods of Civil and Ecclesiastic Corporations, written by Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a radical working for a moderate liberal administration.

who as property owners also rented out real estate. On the other hand, the law sought to create a broad class of small owners in Mexico, to get public wealth moving through the expropriation, and, despite the fact that the Catholic Church was thereafter banned from acquiring more real estate properties, to allow it to invest its monies as a shareholder in private companies. At first glance, the results were not to sub stantially improve tax earnings as the Comon fort administration had wanted. However, in the medium and long terms, it did create powerful interests that pressured both in side Mexico and abroad against the rever sal of the expropriation/nationalization. On the other hand, although the law benefitted many indivi duals who finally were able to acquire a piece of property, it is also true that because officials wanted to rush the Reform, it caused the accumulation of buildings and agrarian latifun dismo, to the detriment of the civic corporations: in other words, the indigenous communities’ ejidos or collective farms. The confiscations also negatively affected institutions like hos pitals, schools, and rest homes, for centuries managed by the Catholic clergy, because, by 1856, the civilian government had neither the financial nor the human wherewithal to take them over. Something else that marked the beginning of the Re form were the labors of the Constituent Congress, the ma terial result of which is the 1857 Federal Constitution, and the whole discussion about whether it was the ideal legal framework for the daily life of a country that had a forebod ing of civil war. It gave the impression that the actions of one side and the other were throwing them into an unfathom able abyss reminiscent of Greek tragedies. In this sense, Mex ican society was shaken when the “fair sex” protested in the streets and in the Chamber of Deputies for the first time 37

Issues like the agrarian reform, the rights of indigenous peoples, and universal, direct voting, among others, were still far from the minds of some liberal representatives.

Tomás Mejía, the most fervent defender of the Conservative cause.

Juan Álvarez, revolutionary hero and strongman of the South.

against the proposal to create freedom of religion. Society woke up suddenly when it found out that the government had demolished the ancient San Francisco Monastery be cause “reactionaries” conspired within its walls, accumulat ing weapons and munitions, and working a clandestine press that produced seditious leaflets. The cabinet was relieved when the deputies in the Constituent Congress put to one side the more radical issues proposed by Ponciano Arriaga, Melchor Ocampo, and José María Mata. Issues like the agrarian reform, the rights of indigenous peoples, and universal, direct voting, among others, were still far from the minds of some liberal representatives con cerned with instituting, regulating, and strengthening those powers that could give form to a true Mexican state. But at the same time, the Comonfort government looked with dis approval and concern on the cutback of the executive branch’s powers in favor of a single-chamber legislative branch that “was everything.” The executive clashed daily with the liber als’ decided enemy, who did everything from staging barracks revolts and criticizing government actions through their news paper La Cruz, to entering the sacred circle of the home through the confessional. On the other hand, the legislature saw Co monfort and the figure of the president as the eternally cloaked specter of tyranny. The experience of the Santa Anna dicta torship was in the mind of all the liberals, but Don Antonio’s excesses also concerned the most enlightened conservatives. The Constituent Congress was responsible for changing the country, and the deputies represented the sovereignty of the people. But since Mexico first became independent some con servative politicians had wanted to eliminate popular sov ereignty because it did not always go along with the wishes of the president. When in early 1857, the Constitution was fin 38

ished, it satisfied no one. Deputy and chronicler Francisco Zar co said that the conservatives looked at it as a compendium of impieties; it stuck in the craw of the moderates because of its supposed excesses; and the radicals were concerned be cause it did not take innovations far enough. Months went by and rumors began to circulate of a coup being prepared against the Constitution. However, it was not a disaffected coronel or a clergyman who openly called for it to be dis avowed, but the radical newspaper El Monitor Republicano, emphasizing that if it was impossible to govern with it, then, Down with the Constitution! A mediation was arrived at with the conciliatory spirit of Zarco himself, who said that the Constitution contained the appropriate ways for legislators to make all kinds of changes, but warned that they would have to have the backing of the Mexican people. Toward the end of November, Guanajuato Governor Ma nuel Doblado told Comonfort that as the future constitutio nal president, he should not disavow the Constitution. First, it was necessary to ask Congress to deal with a series of re forms stemming from the first executive’s well-founded con cerns. If the deputies did not move on these or rejected them, then a more violent course of action could be taken. On December 17, 1857, General Félix Zuloaga headed a barracks revolt rejecting the Constitution; days later, the move was seconded by Comonfort, who said that his legiti mate title of constitutional president had been laid aside and now he had only that of a common revolutionary. The Tacubaya coup d’état had the approval of some liberals, but others opposed it, like the minister of the interior, the pres ident of the Supreme Court, and, in the absence of the head of the executive branch, the person the Constitution desig nated interim president, Benito Juárez. It was the beginning of a confrontation that would end 10 years later (1857-1867) and ever since the nineteenth century, Mexican historiogra phers have called it “the great national decade.”

This Is the Life, anonymous, nineteenth century. Violence, drinking, and courtship among Mexicans.

The War of the Reform (also called the Three Years’ War, since it lasted from January 1858 to December 1860), a con flict that could have lasted until December 1861, had several characteristics that made it different from the flood of “rev olutions” that Mexico had experienced since 1829. First, from the beginning, the rebels based their power in Mexico City, and second, the representatives of the European powers gave both the Félix Zuloaga administration and the later one head ed by Miguel Miramón diplomatic recognition. In contrast, the liberal regime established in Veracruz received recognition and naval back-up from the United States. This means that for three years, there were simultaneous ly two conservative governments and one liberal one, some thing that had not happened during the times of either Itur bide or Santa Anna. The conservatives argued that Juárez was not interim president because Comonfort’s coup put an end to the constitutional order, and they called him “he who had been the president of the Supreme Court.” The liberals un derscored that Juárez was the legitimate president because the Title VIII, Article 128 of the Constitution stipulated that “this Constitution will not lose its force and validity even if a rebellion interrupts its implementation.” London, Paris, Madrid, and Washington did not go into the judicial niceties and treated them all as de facto govern ments. But, using dual language, England’s Prime Minister

Palmerston recognized Juárez’s liberal regime as a belligerent faction in 1859. This date is crucial because it was the most violent year of the civil war, and particularly because the lib erals understood that the 1857 Constitution and the legiti macy of the Juárez government were not enough to get more support and win the war. Given this, and after carefully analyzing the dangers and advantages that could arise, the Juárez cabinet passed what were called the Laws of Reform, which radicalized the lib eral edicts emitted by Ignacio Comonfort’s administration. The matters the laws dealt with were not only important for their time (1859-1860), but they also make it possible to understand the cultural and political profile Mexico has de veloped up until today. The liberal Reform put forward the suppression of monasteries and convents, the secularization of cemeteries, matrimony as a civil contract, and a calendar based on civic holidays, although it maintained five religious ones. It stated that the contributions of the faithful to priests for religious services were completely voluntary, contrary to the obligatory tithe; and that the internal administration of the

The reform ended with two central questions that linked Mexico with the world: the nationalization of all real estate in the hands of the clergy and freedom of religion.

Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a radical reformer.

Catholic Church and the Mexican state was completely inde pendent and separate one from the other. The reform ended with two central questions that linked Mexico with the world: the nationalization of all real estate in the hands of the clergy and freedom of religion officially declared in December 1860. As mentioned above, from 1856 on, foreign individuals had been buying houses and hacien das belonging to the Catholic clergy. Starting in 1861, they began to purchase churches to use for Protestant services. This meant that freedom of religion not only made worship a private, individual matter, but also established the right to publically exercise a different faith, something that, for ex ample, would not happen in Spain for many decades. If Mexico was seeking to attract investment, Prussians, Englishmen, Swedes, and Americans living in the country had demanded to be able to worship according to their own beliefs and, if the case arose, to be buried with dignity. This is why the monopoly over cemeteries was taken away from the Catholic clergy and civic cemeteries created as the cen tury’s “hygiene and modernity” demanded. All this leads us to put forward the existence of another characteristic of the War of the Reform: active intervention from abroad in matters that were originally seen as local is sues. The European chancelleries ended by saying that the republic’s political instability had seriously affected their citizens’ investments, and added that all the Mexican gov ernments, regardless of their political persuasion —federal ist or centralist, liberal or conservative— had shown their disregard for fulfilling the obligations acquired when they took out debt in terms of amounts and percentages that should be speedily and expeditely paid. The correspondence between these chancelleries reflected on the fact that the civil wars being waged both in Mexico and the United States offered the opportunity to stop Washington’s advance southward in 40

Miguel Miramón, paladin of the Conservative armies and Mexico’s youngest president.

the hemisphere. Napoleon III, for example, astutely comment ed that it was the right time for Europe to regain importance in Latin American affairs. The industrialized world was in the midst of competing for raw materials and diversified markets. Lord Palmerston commented in January 1862 that if Mexico’s political system could be replaced with a monarchy that would calm the waters and offer appropriate guarantees for new European investment, it would be a blessing for the country itself, and manna from heaven for the powers with relations in Mexico, as well as an arrangement that could be very advantageous for his countrymen. At the same time, large contingents of French and Eng lish soldiers were debarking in the port of Veracruz. Together with the Spaniards who had arrived in December 1861, they made up the 10,000-strong occupation force. Karl Marx said it was a mistake for European political equilibrium, but the imperial banking system had caught a glimpse on the hori zon of juicy profits.

Basic Reading De la Portilla, Anselmo, México en 1856 y 1857. Gobierno del general Comon fort, Obras Fundamentales/República Liberal Collection (Mexico City: inherm, 1987). Rabasa, Emilio, La Constitución y la dictadura (Mexico City: Porrúa, 1982). Sierra, Justo, Juárez, su obra y su tiempo, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana Col lection no. 61 (Mexico City: unam, 1977). Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida, comp., Juárez. Historia y mito (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2010). Villegas Revueltas, Silvestre, Antología de textos. La Reforma y el Segundo Im perio (1853-1867), Biblioteca del Estudiante Universitario Collection no. 145 (Mexico City: unam, 2010).

“When We Were an Empire” The Monarchical Experiment in Mexico (1864-1867) Érika Pani*

Édouard Manet, Execution of Emperor Maximilian, 1868. Kunsthalle, Mannheim.

ew events in the history of Mexico had an impact on the Western imaginary like Maximilian’s empire. By 1868, vanguard painter Édouard Manet immortal ized his tragic end in a canvas that would cause a sensation

* Professor/researcher at El Colegio de México Center for Historical Studies. The illustrations on pp. 42, 43, 44, 45, and 46 were taken from the book Tes timonios artísticos de un episodio fugaz 1864-1867 (Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte-inba, 1995). Reprinted by permission of the National Fine Arts Institute. T he painting on this page is a file from Wikipedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/File:Edouard_Manet_022.jpg.

both in France and in other European countries. The sad story of the unfortunate prince and princess —young, intelligent, and supposedly handsome— has been the topic of a large num ber of testimonies, history books, novels, plays, and even a movie starring Bette Davis. Mexicans, on the other hand, have an ambiguous relationship with this episode. The de scendents of the “victims” of the French intervention also get excited at the imperial melodrama that inspired the the ater of Rodolfo Usigli, a short story by Carlos Fuentes, the fantastic novel by Fernando del Paso, and several soap operas. Maximilian and Carlotta are characters —poor things!— that 41

Jean-Adolphe Beaucé, Emperor Maximilian on Horseback, 1865 (oil on canvas). National History Museum.

For official history, the only value the so-called “empire” left behind was that its defeat won Mexico the right to call itself a nation.

the average Mexican is both familiar and most of the time sympathizes with. However, traditional history has written off the imperial episode, holding that nothing of importance happened un der the monarchy. As José Fuentes Mares said, between 1864 and 1867, Mexico took refuge in the desert and only the ini tiatives of Juárez and his charmed circle, holed up in Paso del Norte, actually shaped historic events. The empire has been classified in the national memory as a frivolous government, but above all as something totally alien to Mexican reality, against which all the true sons of the homeland rose up, ex cept for a couple of recalcitrant conservatives. For official his tory, the only value the so-called “empire” left behind was that its defeat won Mexico what Justo Sierra would call “in disputable and undisputed” right to call itself a nation. How ever, the empire shared many of the objectives and faced many of the same challenges that governments before it had. Thus, Maximilian’s administration managed to build an efficient 42

machine to govern, foster economic development, and invent a shared memory that would link together a profoundly dam aged, splintered society, at the same time that it tried to deal with the pressures from the powers Mexico owed money to. The chiaroscuros and complexities of the imperial project reveal that the episode is firmly ensconced in Mexican his torical experience. Setting up a “modern” state in Mexico that could resist the onslaught of foreign aggression and internal instability, and that could ensure order and the rule of law across the country was an objective shared by all men in public life in the nineteenth century, regardless of political persuasion. Given the chronic disorder and the post-colonial context of economic backwardness and increasing expansion of the Eu ropean powers, this dream became an obsession, above all after the defeat at the hands of the United States, alarming proof that things were in a very bad way indeed. For the young liberals who walked onto the stage of na tional politics with the 1855 Ayutla Revolution, the happi ness of the nation —and even its survival— was firmly fixed in the destruction of what they saw as the dead weight hand ed down from colonial times. In addition to reestablishing federalism and democratizing public life, with the 1857 Con stitution, they sought, then, to guarantee equality before the law, eliminating any kind of immunity; to rev up the economy by confiscating the goods of civic and ecclesiastic commu nities; and to put a brake on the Catholic Church’s econom ic, social, and political power, taking away its real estate and establishing freedom of the press and education. For the conservatives, who opposed this by taking up arms, liberal principles were fundamentally a source of disorganization: they set up a weak government, and, by attacking the Church, and therefore the Catholic religion, destroyed the only link that united Mexicans. The civil war that this clash produced was the bloodiest the country had experienced since indepen dence. After the liberal victory, Benito Juárez took the helm of a nation divided, spent, and ruined. Under these circumstances, and with the Mexican gov ernment’s decision to suspend payments agreed to with its creditor nations, a foreign invasion would superimpose it self on the conflict between liberals and conservatives. Na poleon III saw in the Mexican conflict and the civil war that was consuming the United States an opportunity to be able to put into practice what some called “the grand thinking” of his reign: establishing a presence for France in the New World, to ensure its access to the markets and raw materials

of the Americas, particularly the silver, essential for a coun try whose currency had a two-metal base, and to protect the “Latin race” from its voracious northern neighbor. The sus pension of payments and the lobbying a few Mexicans had been doing since the 1840s to get a foreign prince to Mexico were the excuse the French emperor needed to embark on the “Mexican adventure.” The tripartite intervention had the single aim of forcing a recalcitrant republic to live up to its financial obligations. Spain and England withdrew once their claims had been satisfied, but the French army remained to put Maximilian of Habsburg, the younger brother of the Austrian emperor, on the throne and keep him there. The resplendent Mexican empire owed its existence to the expeditionary forces, and agreed to be responsible for the claims of French subjects, for the costs of the military expedition, and the debts accumulat ed by previous governments. Between 1862 and 1867, 30,000 French soldiers occupied Mexico, suffering no definitive de feats, but they were unable to pacify it. In the end, in the face of U.S. diplomatic pressures once the War of Secession was over, and since France was threatened by an expansionary Prussia, the French emperor’s cost-benefit analysis began to tip into the red, with which he decided to put an end to the ex

pedition and repatriate the army. With the advance of the repub licans and without its military base, the empire collapsed. In hindsight and given how scandalous the failure was, the “Mexican adventure” seems to be the least reasonable of Napoleon the Little’s initiatives. What springs to mind is that in Mexico, important sectors of the population saw a monarchy imposed by French bayonets as a viable regime and even an opportunity for building a better life. In answer to Maximilian’s requirement that to accept the throne, he had to be called by “the entire nation,” an important portion of the city councils in central Mexico wrote “declarations of alle giance.” These sanctioned the intervention and subscribed to the government of the Austrian emperor. There is no doubt that the pressures of the invading army were decisive for the writing of these documents: their proc lamation came on the heels of the advancing French troops. The very towns that declared themselves for the empire in 1863 and 1864 wrote similar declarations two, three, or four years later to hail the return of the republican order. How ever, it should also be taken into account that the arrival of a modern, professional army that announced it would not live off the land it was occupying meant for many communities a temporary relief from the forced conscription and pillage

Cesare Dell’Acqua, The Mexican Delegation Offers Maximilian the Crown, 1864 (oil on canvas). Miramar Castle, Italy.

Jean-Adolphe Beaucé, Visit of the Kikapoo Tribe Legation to Emperor Maximilian, circa 1865 (oil on canvas). Artstetten Castle Museum, Austria.

they had been afflicted with for so many years of war at the hands of both liberals and conservatives. While communities like Xochipulco in the mountains of Puebla preferred to burn their houses down rather than hand the town over to the in vaders, many others saw in the intervention a favorable mo ment to restructure their relations with regional and nation al powers. The enthusiastic way that these towns went to the Council to Protect the Deserving Classes, a body created by Maximilian to deal with complaints from peasant communi ties, as well as the military support the French were given by indigenous groups (the Coras from Lozada, Nayarit; the Ópa tas from Tanori, Sonora; and different communities in Oaxaca and Michoacán), seem to confirm this point of view. The expeditionary army said it was bringing peace, some thing long yearned for by a society that practically since 1854 had been living in a permanent state of trepidation because of increasingly intransigent violence. By contrast, those pol iticians who cooperated with the empire did so based on very different projects. The supporters of the monarchy were not only those one would naturally expect: conservatives who, de feated on the field of battle, saw in the empire the last card to be able to stay in the political game. Another group of public men with long experience and diverse party ties who had played an outstanding role in the country’s political and cul tural activities since the 1840s also collaborated with Maxi milian. These liberals and moderate conservatives believed that the regime headed by a European prince, “protected” by 44

Historiography would trim down the role of the conservatives, labeling them not only myopic, but traitors, and turn the empire into a ridiculous regime. However, it is an episode that deserves to be reevaluated.

France, and sustained by its army, was an opportunity to put their house in order and do all the things that, since inde pendence, political instability and the constant clashes be tween the legislative and executive branches of government, national and state authorities, had not allowed them to do. The presence of the “the world’s foremost army” in Mex ico inspired ambivalence among those who collaborated with the empire. Most perceived it as humiliating. This was the case, above all, of military men who had to submit to the orders of French officers or who, like two of the main conservative leaders, Miguel Miramón and Leonardo Márquez, left the country on merely ornamental diplomatic missions. Neverthe less, many Mexican politicians saw an advantage to the invasion: they believed that the presence of professional armed forces firmly subjected to state authority would free up the govern ment from its exhausting negotiations with “strongmen” who, down through the century, had so often tipped the scales of political order. They did not take into account that this was a disciplined, civically-oriented “armed wing” of a state that was not Mexico’s.

On the other hand, all the supporters of the empire wanted to consolidate an efficient state that would join in brother hood —the term used at the time— order and liberty. They had different visions, however, of the form it should take and what its policy priorities should be. On the one hand were those who, like Zacatecas-born lawyer Teodosio Lares, wanted to provide the government with the administrative tools to be able to act effectively, but not arbitrarily, to have an impact on the national situation. While since the fall of the Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, few had tried —and all unsuccessful ly— to promote a monarchy, these men defended a monar chical system with decidedly modern arguments: this was the form of government most in Mexico’s interest, not be cause of its monarchist, centralist traditions, but because it was the regime that could tame and channel modern political struggle. As the newspaper La Razón explained, under the aegis of the empire, Mexicans could be anything they wanted, ex cept emperor. Thus, the executive branch could not be the prisoner of either armed uprisings or electoral trickery. The political parties, which had been the driving force of instability and conflict, would not stop existing; they would merely be left without a sparring arena to get hurt in. Therefore, by freezing political struggle, the empire made it possible to pass laws and build institutions that the country so urgently needed. Thus, in 1866 the first national civil code was passed. The imperial civil code, written by lawyers Benito Juárez had commis sioned in 1861 (José María Lacunza, José Fernando Ramírez, Pedro Escudero y Echánove, and Luis Méndez) was the basis for the one the liberal government would publish in 1870. Historian, geographer, and linguist Manuel Orozco y Berra based himself on “scientific” criteria to develop a new division of the national territory into 50 departments, with the aim of breaking up the power base of regional caciques or strongmen. In addition, there was no lack of empire sup porters who thought that the government of a prince linked to the main European dynasties would attract investors. In the end, they were not so wrong, even if the results were not as desirable as they had hoped for. So, while within the im perial government, they were never able to come to an agree ment about what proportion of foreign capital a national bank should have, the Bank of London, Mexico and South Amer ica opened a branch in Mexico City with no government authorization. The construction of the railroad from Mexico City to Veracruz, a project that had dragged along since the 1830s, got a decided push forward when the French army,

concerned about the unhealthy climate on the coast, con cluded the length of track to Paso del Macho and Maximilian inaugurated the route from the capital city to La Villa. Also, for the first time since the end of the 1820s, the Mexican gov ernment managed to float debt in the European markets. How ever, this was of no benefit to Maximilian’s government, since the expeditionary army consumed all the resources that came in; it also did no good for the small French savers who bought the imperial “little blues” —as the debt was known— since the

Pablo Valdés, Advance Guard of Zouaves, 1865 (oil on canvas). Artstetten Castle Museum, Austria.

Juárez government would ultimately disavow Maximilian’s fi nancial commitments. On the other hand, no one saw the ascension of the young Habsburg with as much hope as the Catholics, who had faith that a prince descended from the Catholic kings and who had gone to Rome to ask for the Pope’s blessing before em barking for Mexico, would reestablish harmony between civil and ecclesiastic powers. They thought Mexico, as a Catholic people, “should be catholically ruled.” They did not count on the devout Austrian turning out to be not only a liberal but also a defender of royal supremacy vis-à-vis the Church. Maxi 45

time for a moderate historical vi sion like that of the empire’s sup porters. The first general history, by Spaniard Niceto de Zamacois, was not to appear for another 10 years. The monumental work of nine teenth-century historiography, Mé xico a través de los siglos (Mexico Down through the Centuries) (1884), which for decades would be the model for the shape of Mex ico’s past, made the rise of liber alism the central theme of the na tion’s history. This left out the conservatives, who did not turn J. Gaildrau, The Emperor and Empress of Mexico in Vera-Cruz [sic], 1864 (engraving). Álvaro Castillo Olmedo collection. out to be very good Mexicans. At the end of the day, in the milian ratified the nationalization of ecclesiastic property, context of constant warfare, imperial policies had scant re the abolition of immunity, and religious tolerance. He also pro sults. After the French withdrawal, the regime that had chan posed a concordat with the Vatican that stipulated that the neled such different interests and conflicting projects seemed emperor would appoint the country’s bishops, and the govern to have very little to offer. Thus, two experiments failed: the ment would pay for expenses involved in worship, to avoid French imperialist project in the Americas, and the Mexican the abuses the priests committed when they charged mon monarchy. With the defeat of the empire, 1867 is a water ey to perform the sacraments. Even the most intransigent of shed in the political development of the Mexican state, when bishops, like Clemente de Jesús Munguía, archbishop of Mi one of the alternatives that had given shape to the struggle for choacán, reluctantly recognized that the form of separation of power at least since 1857 was cancelled. Historiography, as Church and state implemented by the republican govern we have seen, would trim down the role of the conservatives, labeling them not only myopic, but traitors, and would turn ment was more in their interest than Maximilian’s. Similarly, as the long yearned-for project of erecting a the empire into a ridiculous —and above all, irrelevant— re regime in which Catholicism was the cement of the body gimen. Nevertheless, it is an episode that deserves to be politic faded away, many conservatives felt excluded from reevaluated since it sheds light on the complex attempts and the historic saga with which Maximilian’s government hoped efforts of a political class that, after decades of failures and with to create a shared memory that would link all Mexicans to no prescribed model, was still seeking to create the regime gether through patriotic fiestas and public art. With the par that was possible. ticipation of renowned historians like José Fernando Ramír ez, a former cabinet minister, and Manuel Larráinzar, who Basic Reading would propose his project of writing a “general history” of Mexico to the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Arts, the imperial government wanted to narrate the nation’s past as a long, conciliatory odyssey with a great many more heroes than villains. Nevertheless, the exaltation of the pre-Hispan ic past, which the conservatives dubbed barbarian, of the he roes of liberalism, who they considered criminals, and of the possibilities of mixing the races offended many Hispan ophile, European-enamored conservatives. It was not the 46

Conte Corti, Egon Caesar, Maximiliano y Carlota (Mexico City: fce, 1983). Meyer, Jean, Yo el francés. La intervención en primera persona. Biografías y crónicas (Mexico City: Tusquets, 2002). Pani, Érika, Para mexicanizar el segundo imperio. El imaginario político de los imperialistas (Mexico City: El Colegio de México/Instituto Mora, 2001). Quirarte, Martín, Historiografía sobre el imperio de Maximiliano (Mexico City: unam, 1970). Thomson, Guy, Patriotism, Politics and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth Cen tury Mexico: Juan Francisco Lucas and the Puebla Sierra (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1999).

From the Restoration of the Republic to the Dictatorship Of a Single Man (1867-1910) Evelia Trejo*

he period known in Mexico as the “Restored Repub lic” began in 1867. It was called that because for the nine years from 1867 to 1876, the task of Mexico’s rulers centered on consolidating a long yearned-for dream: * Researcher at the unam Institute of Historical Research and professor of historiography at the unam School of Philosophy and Letters. Photo Credits: Porfirio Díaz (p.47), Justo Sierra, ed., México, su evolución social (Mexico City: J. Ballescá, 1900-1902); Benito Juárez (p. 47), Vicente Riva Palacio, comp., México a través de los siglos, Vol. 5 La Reforma (Mexico City and Barcelona: Ballescá and Espasa, respectively, 1887-1889); lithographs (pp. 48 and 50), Decaen, ed., México y sus alrededores (Mexico City: Establecimiento Litográfico de De caen, 1855 and 1856).

creating a republic in the full meaning of the term, with a division of powers and guaranteed independence and na tional sovereignty, just as the nations considered models of development like the United States and France were seen to have, with a society well on the road that would inevita bly lead to a higher level of civilization and progress. In the judgment of the liberals, who had finally managed to hold on to power, Mexicans had something that guaran teed the achievement of these goals: the Constitution passed a decade before, in 1857, held in the highest esteem. Once the Laws of Reform were incorporated into it in 1873, it be 47

The period known as the Restored Republic tested the imagination and political strength of those who wanted to organize Mexico according to liberal principles. came a firm basis upon which to organize a country that had left behind the tutelage of the Church, an institution inher ited from the time when Spanish domination had marked the country’s history and that was understood as a constant prop of the Conservative Party, and therefore, responsible for Mexicans’ backwardness. Once the national and foreign military forces that had supported the empire were defeated, the most important liberal caudillos felt themselves masters of the situation and enthusiastically looked forward to tracing the nation’s des tiny. This historic moment was so significant that one of the most famous histories of Mexico, the five-volume set of Mé xico a través de los siglos (Mexico Down through the Centuries), published between 1882 and 1889, traced the march of the people of Mexico from their pre-Hispanic origins to the exact date when Mexico City celebrated the triumphal entrance 48

of the liberal victors. Six decades later, in the mid-twentieth century, the impression of these times had not substantially changed. When one of Mexico’s most renowned intellectuals, Da niel Cosío Villegas, wrote and coordinated his Historia mod erna de México (Modern History of Mexico) dealing with different political, economic, and social facets, he did not doubt a moment about beginning his narrative precisely in 1867. He thought that examining the process begun in that year would lead him to fully understand his own time. From then on, study and the generation of knowledge has never ceased about a decade that put to the test the imagination and political strength of a large group of individuals who for a long time had wanted to organize Mexico based on liberal principles. The challenge was enormous, given that they were facing the task after years of civil war and, in addition, they were divided as they arrived at their goal. The most prestigious figures, Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz, both from Oaxaca, were the protagonists in clearly op posing episodes: one represented the civilian forces and the other, the military. Both came to the fore during the years of the Wars of the Reform and the Intervention and had the opportunity to consecutively head up political life. First

came Juárez, and later, his former student at the Oaxaca Scientific and Literary Institute, Porfirio Díaz, who would shoulder the government of Mexico from 1876 to 1911. Be tween the two of them, there would be only the four-year interval from 1880 to 1884 when Manuel González was president. Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz have filled the pages of the history books, one as the highest expression of republican liberalism and the other as a dictator, the shame ful example of a man who centralizes power and stays in the presidential seat without respecting the principle of nonreelection that had been the slogan which ushered him into office in the first place. Both were ingenious enough to govern with the 1857 Con stitution, changing the laws to allow them to stay on as first executive. In the case of Juárez, this was done to deal with the urgent need to consolidate a very fragile power structure. Díaz invoked the need to maintain political order to foster eco nomic growth, applying a maxim that was useful for a very long time: “Little politics and lots of administration,” taking care that local power structures did not grow too much and that political bosses always went along with his decisions.

If it had been easy to keep a population in line, a popula tion that grew in many ways precisely because of the coun try’s stability, Díaz’s long period in power would not have ended until his death. However, even given those circum stances, a large number of problems that Mexico had been accumulating for a long time were not resolved. Perhaps the most pressing was the inequality among its inhabitants. The dearth of mechanisms for alleviating the economic straits of the poorest classes, as well as the lack of opportunities for incorporating interested individuals and groups into the sphere of political decision-making would exact a high price for the apparently invincible government that gives its name to a whole era: the Porfiriato. All this caused the discontent that in different ways would gradually give rise to the 1910 Revolution. For more than four decades of Mexico’s history these two and other figures (Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada [1873-1876], and Manuel González [1880-1884], or illustrious men like Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Justo Sierra, and José Yves Li mantour) would have an impact on the life of Mexico. How ever, none of them alone can explain the changes in society Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz have filled the pages of the history books, one as the highest expression of republican liberalism and the other as the shameful example of a man who centralizes power.

Cover of a modern reprint of Mexico Down through the Centuries.

that spurred a transformation big enough to conclude that the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twen tieth had situated the country closer to the models of modern nations, concerned with the enlightenment of men and women, trusting that increasingly widespread education would guar antee the longed-for progress that some of the world’s most famous thinkers had talked about. Among other factors favoring the creation of a modern world in the times of the Restored Republic was, for example, the acceptance of religious tolerance. This meant opening the doors of a traditional, majority-Catholic nation to new creeds, above all Protestant denominations, rather a good fit with the political aspirations of liberals who wanted to limit the powers of the Catholic Church without necessarily de-Christianiz ing Mexicans. The proliferation of propaganda from differ ent churches and their establishment in Mexico became more and more unmistakable starting in 1872 under the Lerdo de 49

Tejada administration. To expand, the Protestants used schools and periodicals, two means welcomed by those who wanted to see Mexicans creating a secularized, modern society. Nev ertheless, their progress could not be effective in the short term, since the majority of the population resisted the changes and remained faithful to the doctrine disseminated for more the three centuries. The conservatives, who had supposedly been defeated in the Wars of the Reform and the Intervention, far from dis appearing, found the way to regroup and gain strength. Like the liberals, they were not homogeneous, but they did react in the face of what they saw as a threat to the country’s tradi tions, even using the same weapons as their enemies. They continued to be present in schools and journalism, even though official policy stipulated something else. In addition to fulfilling the need for elementary instruc tion, it was proposed, particularly during the years of the Díaz administration, that nationwide, education be manda tory, secular, and free in order to overcome backwardness and integrate the nation. From the time of the restoration of the republic, a very firm step forward had been made in the field of intermediate education with the founding of the Na tional Preparatory School, an institution inspired in Auguste Comte’s positivist doctrine that attempted to channel young students into the fields of science, putting to one side the shadows of what were considered traditional teaching, akin

The longed-for road to progress had already been built in Mexico, but many of its achievements were based on an acutely fractured social and political structure.

to metaphysics. This school soon became the seedbed for what would turn into the intelligentsia and the scientific vo cations that years later, in September 1910, would promote the inauguration of the National University under the Díaz administration, but very shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution. Although positivist thinking and the new creeds seemed to be at odds with the older models of thinking that had forged the Mexican people’s mentality, the reality is that they only had an impact among a minority of the population. In any case, little by little, down through this period, society devel oped in such a way that all these elements coexisted together without eliminating the profoundly entrenched previous tra ditions. This can be seen in acts like the coronation of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1895 in sumptuous cele brations, and the plethora of fiestas and religious activities that continued to be carried out, particularly after the Díaz government implemented a conciliatory policy toward the Catholic Church. Journalism, long considered the ideal vehicle for forging public opinion among the citizenry, also underwent inter esting changes in the period in question. It went from en joying almost unrestricted freedom during the Restored Re public, to greater control under the Porfiriato, when, in ad dition, journalists’ attention turned from the doctrinaire nature of previous publications to focusing on getting out the news. So, even when publications were the mouthpiec es of specific interests like the Catholics, the positivists, or others, the lifespan of newspapers and magazines depended more on continuing to capture the public’s interest (a read ership increasingly inclined to seek in their pages national and international news) than on government sponsorship or commercial publicity, which also was becoming more and more widespread. In addition, the gradual incorporation of women into this area of the generation of public opinion be came more and more evident. The history of newspapers like La Voz de México or El Imparcial and magazines like Violetas del Anáhuac show an important part of these changes.

Universidad iisue/ahunam/Colección

Inaguration of the National University of Mexico in September 1910.

From the time of the restoration of the republic, a very firm step forward had been made in the field of intermediate education with the founding of the National Preparatory School. New developments came in from all sides, often foster ing an exaggerated perception of the modernity that some sectors wanted to create in Mexico. What cannot be doubt ed is that those who were analyzing the situation based on the evolutionist theories in vogue at the time sought to show Mexicans’ capacity for achieving the well-being they legiti mately aspired to. This was the case of the so-called cientí ficos (“scientists”) who surrounded Díaz’s administration and who, like many others, were proud that the advances in the economy were palpable: foreign investments, particularly from the United States and England, had helped extending the railroad lines until they covered a large part of the na tion’s territory; communications fostered commerce and the growth of cities and ports; there was a bonanza in public fi nances and mining productivity and an increase in the num ber of banks and powerful entrepreneurs; and the cities even festooned themselves with buildings as modern as downtown Mexico City’s Palacio de Hierro, the country’s first depart

ment store, just to mention one of the architectural works erected at the height of the Porfiriato. Certainly these and other elements were proof that the longed-for road to progress had already been built in Mexi co. But it is also true that many of these achievements were based on an acutely fractured social and political structure. The living conditions of a population that was by far mostly rural and the limitations of political liberties would very soon open the floodgates for different kinds of demands that in a few years would bring about the defeat of Porfirio Díaz and give way to an authentic Revolution.

Basic Reading Agostoni, Claudia, and Elisa Speckman, eds., Modernidad, tradición y alte ridad. La ciudad de México en el cambio de siglo (xix y xx) (Mexico City: unam/Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2001). Galeana, Patricia, coord., Presencia internacional de Juárez (Mexico City: Asociación de Estudios sobre la Reforma, la Intervención Francesa y el Segundo Imperio [arisi]/Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, Carso, 2008). Garner, Paul, Porfirio Díaz: del héroe al dictador: una biografía política (Mex ico City: Planeta Mexicana, 2003). Ludlow, Leonor, comp., Los secretarios de Hacienda y sus proyectos (18211933), vol. 2 (Mexico City: unam/Instituto de Investigaciones Histó ricas, 2002).

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) Robert Dorman

Álvaro Matute*

s the twentieth century began, Mexico suffered from a myriad of problems: on the one hand, in 1900 Pres ident Porfirio Díaz was reelected for the fifth time, which, while it guaranteed stability, also implied the lack of

* Researcher emeritus of the unam Institute for Historical Re search. Photo Credits: The photo on this page was published on Brenner, Anita, The Wind that Swept Mexico. The History of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1942 (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1943). Porfirio Díaz (p. 53), Archivo His tórico Ezequiel A. Chávez, Instituto de Investigaciones sobre la Universidad y Educación; Emiliano Zapata (p. 54), Fototeca Archivo General de la Na ción; Venustiano Carranza (p. 55), Colección fotográfica sueltas, Fondo Reservado, Biblioteca Nacional, UNAM; Little girl (p. 57), Metropolitan Magazine, n.d.

political mobility for new generations of professionals who aspired to high positions in the government bureaucracy. This was replicated in most states nationwide. Many governors were reelected indefinitely and the emerging groups began to express their disagreement. As a result of the 1856 Lerdo Law that confiscated ec clesiastic property, but which also tended to destroy com munity goods and foster individual private property, and the laws on fallow land stemming from it, many peasant commu nities lost their ejido lands to the expansion of latifundios formed in the last third of the nineteenth century. Emiliano Zapata from the state of Morelos was an outstanding spokes person demanding the return of communal goods; in his state, the owners of large tracts of land planted with sugar cane had

Politics

taken it from peasant communities. Industrial workers suf fered under a different yoke: among others, they were denied their rights to association and to strike; and there were no re gulations establishing minimum working ages, the length of the work day, or wage and benefits policies, despite the fact that the workers had already developed mutualism and co operativism. This spurred the emergence of anarchist and anarcho-sindicalist groups and ideas, as well as the propa gation of the ideas derived from Pope Leo xiii’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, establishing what has been identified as social Catholicism, which would soon manifest itself in the organization of Catholic workers congresses that demanded, just like their anarchist counterparts, an answer from the state. The liberal heirs of the reformist tradition protested the rapprochement between certain Catholic Church hier archs and the government, pressing for the need to apply the Laws of the Reform establishing the separation of Church and state. Thus, a series of factors came together bringing with them political, agrarian, labor, and religious problems.

In 1900 President Porfirio Díaz was reelected for the fifth time, which, while it guaranteed stability, also implied the lack of political mobility for new generations of professionals.

People began to act. In the city of San Luis Potosí, the lib erals held a congress in 1903 where complaints were voiced to the government because of its rapprochement with the church. Out of that congress emerged the group that three years later would publish the Plan and Program of the Lib eral Party, a well crafted document in which, while the rela tionship between church and state still had a place, the most important focus was a series of political, economic, and so cial proposals for reforming the country. This plan dealt with labor issues like limiting the work day and establishing a minimum wage; and agrarian measures, like making sure there were no fallow lands in the country. It also put forward the need for mandatory, secular, state-run education. This group’s ideas circulated among broad sectors of workers through the newspaper Regeneración, whose editor, Ricardo Flores Magón, was its main ideologue. For his trouble, Flores Magón was persecuted and jailed many times, to the point of being forced into exile in the United States. The Catholic

Porfirio Díaz.

Workers Circles, for their part, broadened their grassroots organization and held congresses in which they debated ad vanced labor reforms. In urban areas, professionals close to the political class began to speculate about the succession of General Porfirio Díaz. They expressed their concerns about how the presi dential succession should be resolved in articles, pamphlets, and books, and asked themselves if the Mexican people were ready for democracy or not. They also discussed whether it was possible to organize political parties. These speculations were fueled even more by President Díaz’s statements to jour nalist James Creelman from Pearson’s Magazine, published in March 1908, announcing that he intended to retire at the end of his term in 1910. The book written by vineyard-owner Francisco I. Madero, La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession of 1910) in San Pedro de las Colonias, in the northern state of Coahuila, ex plained the author’s expectations about the dic tator’s announced retirement. In his book, he expressed an agreement with “Don Porfi rio” —as Díaz is still known today in 53

Emiliano Zapata, the caudillo of the South.

Mexico: because the middle class had grown stronger, the possibility existed for the exercise of democracy. Other writers, on the other hand, were skeptical on this point. One of them, evolutionist Andrés Molina Enríquez, the author of what was undoubtedly the best diagnosis of the situa tion, warned that democracy was still far off. In his book Los grandes problemas nacionales (The Great National Prob lems), published in 1909, he took into account factors like the interaction among ethnic-social groups with different forms of land ownership. From this analysis, he was able to come to important conclusions foreseeing that in the face of kind of diversity that existed, it was impossible to evolve. A homogeneous society, by contrast, could have a democratic government, but before that, it would evolve from a personal dictatorship into a party dictatorship. When 1910 came around, Porfirio Díaz changed his mind and decided to launch his campaign for president again. After a bad experience, the Democratic Party, formed in 1909 to support General Bernardo Reyes, dissolved when some of its members were persecuted. The only party left standing was the Antireelectionist Party, organized by Francisco I. Madero, who 54

The Maderistas’ victory immediately had transcendental political consequences: Porfirio Díaz resigned and, at the end of the same month, left the country on a boat bound for Europe.

went on the first campaign tour worthy of the name in the history of Mexico. Despite harassment and persecution, the campaign was successful; but when the elections were held, fraud handed the victory to the dictatorship. Madero, basically imprisoned in San Luis Potosí, wrote the Plan of San Luis, in which he called for an uprising on November 20, 1910 and for the population to disavow the fraudulently elect ed authorities. At first, the response was small, but in the first three months of 1911, increasing numbers of rebel groups joined him, particularly in the northern part of the country. By May, when a large number of rebellions had broken out nationwide, the forces came together in Ciudad Juárez, on the U.S. border, where what was to be the decisive battle was fought. The Maderistas’ victory immediately had tran scendental political consequences: Porfirio Díaz resigned

the presidency and, at the end of the same month, left the country on a boat bound for Europe, where he would spend the last five years of his life. Between May and November was the period known as the “Interim,” headed by Francisco León de la Barra. Madero made a triumphal tour from the border to the capital, where many problems awaited him. On the one hand, the groups around him were divided. In addition, there was a commitment to disband the revolutionary troops, some of which, like the Zapatistas, refused as long as the government had not fulfilled its agrarian promises. In addition, the freedoms Madero guar anteed, in particular the freedom of the press, were used against the revolutionary leader himself, who was even per sonally satirized. Even with all of this, in November he took the oath as president and began his administration. A few days later, the Zapatistas’ impatience manifested itself through the Plan of Ayala, which urged the restitution of the towns’ collective ejido farms. New anti-Madero outbreaks

In 1913 Carranza gave the movement a national dimension by sending contingents to the South and Southeast and occupying ports and customs offices, allowing him to raise money for his movement.

Venustiano Carranza (right).

were not long in coming: General Bernardo Reyes, Pascual Orozco, and Félix Díaz headed important military uprisings. In the midst of this difficult situation, a new Chamber of Dep

Francisco I. Madero, who overthrew Porfirio Díaz.

uties —the twenty-sixth— was elected, with a government plurality, and began the task of writing legislation to satisfy the discontented groups. When the president thought he had mastered the situa tion, a new military uprising in Mexico City freed Generals Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz from the city’s prisons. Reyes was killed when he tried to take the National Palace, as U.S. Ambassador Henry L. Wilson orchestrated a conspiracy in which General Victoriano Huerta betrayed the president and took him prisoner in February 1913 in what is known as the “Tragic Ten Days.” Madero was assassinated and Huerta in stituted a dictatorial regime by dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and sending anyone who opposed his government to prison, or even murdering them, including a senator. After Huerta took over the presidency, the governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, disavowed him and incited the people to bring down his government based on the Plan of Guadalupe published in March 1913. Up until then, very little had been advanced regarding the reforms that had fu eled the revolutionary movement. The deputies began to de bate about restoring the ejidos to the towns and labor reform issues; peasant groups continued their struggle, while the workers —both the anarcho-syndicalists, organized in the House of the World Worker, and the Catholics— developed labor proposals for so cial justice. The center of this period is Carran za’s struggle against Huerta, which 55

different groups from the north joined, like the Division of the North under the command of Francisco Villa and the Sonorans who would create the Northwest Army, under its supreme commander General Álvaro Obregón. For his part, Zapata continued the struggle. Carranza gave the movement a national dimension by sending contingents to the South and Southeast and occupying ports and customs offices, which al lowed him to raise money for his movement. The military ac tions against the federal army took place between March 1913 and August 1914, when the latter was defeated. Once having overthrown President Huerta, the different groups agreed to hold a convention to design a program of reforms. It began in October 1914, but the groups around Villa argued that it should be transferred to the city of Aguas calientes, considered neutral territory. Once established there, the convention declared itself sovereign and disavowed Car ranza, who left Mexico City and set up his government in Veracruz. The struggle between Constitutionalists and Con ventionists was imminent, and the Sovereign Revolutionary Convention forces moved to Mexico City. In December 1914, the Pact of Xochimilco was signed, uni fying the forces of Villa and Zapata and putting them 56

selves momentarily under the command of the president elected by the convention, Eulalio Gutiérrez. General Obre gón, for his part, decided to throw his support to Carranza, which was instrumental in the Constitutionalist victory in mid1915. Parallel to the military battles, another struggle, this one along ideological lines, was being waged through the publica tion of legislation and decrees on social issues that benefitted peasants and workers. The latter, members of the House of the World Worker, lent their support to the Constitutionalist army and joined it in what they called Red Battalions to fight against Villa. Maintaining the revolutionary armies active meant that the meager existing harvests and cattle were used to feed the troops, causing fairly widespread famine. This was accompa nied by monetary chaos since each army minted and issued its own currency. As if this were not enough, epidemics spread due to the lack of hygiene in both cities and countryside. Although the military phase had not concluded in 1916, its eventual outcome was clear, and this would be the year to channel the revolutionary reforms into legislation that would be applied immediately. Both the defeated conventionists and the victorious constitutionalists applied themselves to writing plans and laws designed to satisfy the demands em anating from the struggle. In fact, the convention survived in the territory controlled by Emiliano Zapata. In that year,

1916, he would publish a “Program of Reforms” that in cluded many of the ideas expressed by Magón’s followers since 1906, plus others that had emerged during the revolu tionary struggle itself. Carranza, for his part, would convene elections for a Constituent Congress to session at the end of the year in the city of Querétaro, where he would present a constitutional reform proposal for debate. The congress was elected and began its session in De cember 1916, concluding February 5, 1917. While the only participants present were from the victors’ camp, in social, generational, and professional terms the composition of the delegates was representative and varied. Carranza’s plan was rapidly surpassed by the more radical wing, whose proposals on educational, agrarian, labor, and religious issues overshad owed his more moderate project that ran along traditional liberal lines. The radicals —dubbed Jacobins— went much further. As a result, the state was given more faculties as the supreme arbiter in labor, agrarian, educational, and religious matters. Although individual guarantees were established, many of them ceded precedence to a preponderance of the state, manifested in a strong government centered on the fig ure of the president, who was not limited at all, except for the republican norms that maintained an equilibrium of the

Although the military phase had not concluded in 1916, this would be the year to channel the revolutionary reforms into legislation that would be applied immediately.

branches of government and individual freedoms. The Con stitution also gave the ownership of the land, the sub-soil, mi nerals, and hydrocarbons to the nation, as well as the faculty of transferring it to individuals. Thus, the new Constitution established mandatory, free, secular, state-regulated education. It dealt with the agrarian problem by establishing the nation’s power over the soil and sub-soil and the ability to divide up large tracts of land. It handled labor issues by establishing a maximum number of hours of work, a minimum wage, and certain benefits, plus prohibiting child labor. It controlled the number and nation ality of the Church’s clergy and banned worship in the street. Lastly, it strengthened the institution of the presidency. It would not be easy to apply the Constitution, that is, to turn the majority of its articles into legislation that would make it possible to actually put in into practice. The commit ment of the administrations that came out of it would be to make it an effective document. No easy task, since the coun try was plagued by a great deal of unrest, and the international scene was complicated by World War I, making the situa tion no easier. The final results made possible the construction of a state headed by a strong central government based on workers and peasants who benefitted from it, as well as a popular army and the collaboration of the emerging middle classes, who expressed all manner of scientific, technological, and cul tural advances.

Basic Reading Ávila Espinosa, Felipe Arturo, Los orígenes del zapatismo (Mexico City: El Colegio de México/unam, 2001). Matute, Álvaro, La revolución mexicana. Actores, escenarios y acciones (Vida cultural y política, 1901-1929) (Mexico City: Océano, 2010). Portilla, Santiago, Una sociedad en armas. Insurrección antirreeleccionista en México, 1910-1911 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mé xico, 1995). Salmerón Sanginés, Pedro, La División del Norte. La tierra, los hombres y la historia de un ejército del pueblo (Mex ico City: Planeta, 2006).

Art and culture

Film and the Mexican Revolution David M. J. Wood

he Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910 just 15 years after the invention of the Lumière cinematograph, was among the world’s first major conflicts to be captured on film. Although previous hostilities, such as the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Boer War (1899-1902), had attracted attention from early cameramen, the Mexican war of 1910-1917 was unprecedented both in the scale on which Mexican and foreign film operators followed, recorded, and exhibited the events of this vast, complex confrontation, and in the impact their footage had over a prolonged period on cinema audiences’ comprehension of the military and social upheavals besetting their country. The image and memory of the revolution would also make a deep and lasting impression on subsequent fiction film output both in Mexico –which would turn out to be one of

*Researcher at the unam Institute for Aesthetic Research. david_mj_wood@yahoo.com Photos on pages 58, 59, 60, 61 and 63, courtesy of the Old San Ildefonso College.

Latin America’s leading film-producing nations– and abroad. Just as cinema is crucial to understanding how the Mexican Revolution was fought, lived, and subsequently incorporated into the popular imaginary, the revolution itself plays a key role in the comprehension of how cinema developed in Mexico. This essay will discuss a small selection of films on the revolution, with reference to the following topical and analytical categories: documentary representation, violence, caudillos, gender relations, mobility, photographic aesthetics, and the foreign gaze.1 Francisco I. Madero’s 1910 insurrection against the authoritarian regime of General Porfirio Díaz and the ensuing battle, bloodshed, and political manoeuvering that plagued the country for the following decade inspired cameramen and film exhibitors like Jesús H. Abitia, Salvador Toscano, and the Alva brothers to travel the length and breadth of Mexico, filming the conflict’s latest events and displaying them to audiences keen to gain a grip on their country’s rapidly changing situation. Stirred variously by ideological and financial motives, these film entrepreneurs frequently travelled with and promoted the causes of the various revolutionary caudillos (most prominently Madero, Venustiano Carranza, and Álvaro Obregón, in the case of the Mexican cameramen, while Francisco Villa entered into an agreement with the Mutual Film Corporation that initially feted The revolution him as the hero of the revolution for U.S. film audiences). The popularity of such actuality itself plays a key role films and the competition for audiences’ attention encouraged filmmakers to elaborate in the comprehension increasingly long and complex narratives: the lost but recently-reconstructed La toma de of how cinema Ciudad Juárez y el viaje del héroe de la Revolución D. Francisco I. Madero (The Taking of Ciu developed in Mexico. dad Juárez and the Journey of Don Francisco I. Madero, Hero of the Revolution) (Salvador Toscano, 1911) is a key early example. Some filmmakers, most notably Salvador Toscano, recycled their actuality footage to create historical films narrating various years of recent history, often several hours long, thus establishing the Mexican Revolution as the scenario of some of world’s first compilation documentaries. This genre would attain greater national and even international popularity with the later sound compilations Memorias de un mexicano (Memoirs of a Mexican) (Carmen Tos cano, 1950) and Epopeyas de la Revolución (Epics of the Revolution) (Gustavo Carrero, 1963). The revolutionary-era compilations continued to feature in cinema programs during the long postrevolutionary period of reconstruction and reconci liation in the 1920s, but they gradually faded from prominence as audiences turned to the escapism and visual allure of the by-then-hegemonic Hollywood industry. By the early 1930s, though, with the onset of the sound era, Mexican fictional film was able to enter into a critical engagement with the country’s still-recent past. The three films of Program for scree ning of the docum Fernando de Fuentes’ revolutionary trilogy, El pri Ten entary La decena Days), Salvador Tos trágica en Mexico cano, 1913, Carm (Mexico’s Tragic en Toscano Found sionero trece (Prisoner 13) (1933), El compadre ation. 59

Still from La Adelita (The Women Soldier/Campfollower), Guillermo Hernández Gómez, 1937. Televisa Foundation Collection.

Stirred by ideological and financial motives, film entrepreneurs frequently travelled with and promoted the causes of the various revolutionary caudillos.

Mendoza (Friend Mendoza) (1933) and Vámonos con Pancho Villa (Let’s Go with Pancho Villa) (1935), are some of the most remarkable moving pictures made on the revolution, and together constitute a damning condemnation of the physical violence, psychological cruelty, and betrayal underlying social and personal relations during the 1910-1917 conflict. The three films are set, respectively, at a federal army barracks in Mexico City during the reactionary regime of Victoriano Huerta; in a rural hacienda whose owner juggles loyalties between the local Zapatista and government forces; and among a group of idealistic friends (the “Leones de San Pablo”) who enlist with Pancho Villa’s forces as they campaign throughout northern Mexico. All three are characterized by an overt politics of violence that structures the revolutionary period: that of an oppressive authoritarian state against its citizens in El prisionero trece, that of factional warfare in El compadre Mendoza, and between and among Villista and government forces in Vámonos con Pancho Villa. More prominent and powerful, though, is the psychological pain that the complex protagonists of these films inflict upon themselves and upon those they love, be it knowingly or otherwise, through defining acts of betrayal that renege on sacred bonds of family and compadrazgo.2 The revolutionary trilogy, made at a painful juncture in Mexico’s post-revo lutionary reconciliation, signals the deep rifts that existed within what 1920s governments had dubbed the “revolutionary family,” both during the revolution itself and in the early 1930s. Few films since have dealt so effectively with the interplay between the revo lution’s internal and external violence. Vámonos con Pancho Villa is the only film of the trilogy to feature directly one of the caudillos of the revolution —quite fittingly, since it was Villa, far more than any other

José Clemente Orozco, Campo de batalla (Battlefield), lithographs. somaap.

Alfredo Zalce, La soldadera (Woman Soldier), engraving, 1946. Museo de la Estampa.

Raúl de Anda in still from Vámonos con Pancho Villa (Let’s Go with Pancho Villa), Fernando de Fuentes, 1935. unam Filmoteque.

Still from Chicogrande, Felipe Cazals, 2010. Eniac Martínez. Creando Films.

A more politically military leader, whom cinema turned into the stuff of myth. While portrayals of Villa in challenging take on the part Mexican and U.S. films during and soon after the revolution tended to epically lionize or women played in the demonize him, the Villa of De Fuentes’s movie is all too human, sometimes compassionrevolution is La soldadera ate but often aloof, making his own final act of betrayal all the more unbearable. As a whole host of later films on the caudillo reflect, Villa was also arguably the most complex, evocative, and ambiguous character of post-revolutionary historical narratives and popular imaginaries. As the Mexican film industry and the post-revolutionary regime alike consolidated toward the late 1930s, the space for critical readings of national history closed down. Flor silvestre (Wild Flower) (Emilio Fernández, 1943) also deals with the trau ma of the Mexican Revolution through the metaphorical lens of family and gender relations, but unlike the De Fuentes pictures of the early 1930s, Fernández’s far more socially conservative film presents bonds of family, gender, and social class as solid structures that are reformed and expanded by the revolution, but ultimately remain largely unchanged. The film relates the story of José Luis (Pedro Armendáriz), the dashing young son of a hacienda-owner, who challenges the traditional social structures that shape his family life, firstly by joining the Maderista revolution and secondly by eloping with Esperanza, a lower-class, local woman. Finally, though, Flor silvestre is deeply ambiguous about the revolutionary process, as we see when José Luis’s father is killed by marauding revolutionaries, and he sets out to avenge the mur derers. The film’s melodramatic narrative structure buttresses the sense of inevitability of underlying social, gender, and class relations, and the revolutionary backdrop is subsumed into a broader and more abstract nationalist discourse on social mobil Silvia Pinal in La soldadera (The Woman Soldier), José Bolaños, 1966. unam Filmoteque. ity, bravery, and honor. 61

A more politically challenging take on the part women played in the revolution is La soldadera (The Woman Soldier/Campfollower) (José Bolaños, 1966), made at a time when Mexican film production was gaining some financial and ideological independence from the state, despite the continued pressure of censorship. La sol dadera centers on the story of Lázara (Silvia Pi nal), the bride of a federal soldier who is soon killed in battle against Villistas. Pinal’s character, for want of any alternative, joins the contingent of women (soldaderas) accompanying y years of (The Last Thirt ico éx M de os añ the revolutionary troops on their campaigns. timos treinta undation. script of Los úl en Toscano Fo m the editing c. 1930. Carm o, an sc To Film frame fro r The revolution here is incomprehensible, insurmount do Mexico), Salva able, and brutal, but Lázara stoically accepts her lot in the sharply stratified gender relations of the revolutionary bola.3 The film’s visual style is highly fluid and mobile, reflecting the technological innovations of the era, and its narrative is punctuated throughout by the visual and aural motif of the train transporting the troops from one battle to another. Yet rather than being a romanticized emblem of physical mobility, national integration, and macho companionship, as in many previous films on the revolution, here the train serves as an ironic signifier of the chaos, aimlessness, and uprooting that war brings with it. Only the notion of home, of fixity and stability, drives Lázara, but it is an ideal that is repeatedly, cruelly, denied to her. If La soldadera deconstructs the tropes of the railway and the soldadera, idealized in many previous films on the revolution, Reed: México insurgente (Reed: Insurgent Mexico) (Paul Leduc, 1970), another independent production of the era, tackles headlong the visual and historical nostalgia surrounding the cinematic representation of the revolution. In Leduc’s poetic reconstruction of the experiences of U.S. journalist John Reed, who reported on the Mexican Revolution whilst “embedded” with revolutionary troops, Alexis Grivas’s carefully wrought photographic aesthetic mirrors the visual style of the now-distant actuality footage of the revolution, while the sepia hue in which the entire film is immersed makes evident, and thus implicitly critiques, any facile idealization of the past that cinematic representation might endorse. In tune with broader international currents of militant filmmaking, Reed celebrates political engagement and criticizes the pretence of journalistic and artistic distance or objectivity. Another contemporary film, the Argentine documentary México, la re volución congelada (Mexico, the Frozen Revolution) (Raymundo Gleyzer, 1970), actively intervenes in what had by now become the filmic heritage of the revolution, appropriating documentary footage shot during the conflict itself, and turning it into the visual evidence of a revisionist, anti-impe rialist reading of the revolution and its failures. Gleyzer was the latest in a long line of foreign filmmakers to find inspiration in the Mexican Revolution; and his militant documentary is far removed from Hollywood epics such as the ostensibly anti-revolutionary Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952), or from trans Poster for Viva Zapata!, Elia Ka cultural spaghetti westerns such as Giù la testa / Los héroes de Mesa Verde (re zan, 1951 .

Antonio Aguilar as Emiliano Zapata. Emiliano Zapata, Felipe Cazals, 1970. imcine.

Lobby card for Epopeyas de la Revolución (Epics of the Revolution), Gustavo Carrero, 1963. Carmen Toscano Foundation.

leased in English as A Fistful of Dynamite) (Sergio Leone, 1971). As much as being about the revolution, many such films have taken the Mexican conflict as a canvas onto which to project ready-formed cultural perceptions and ideological projects. Mexican and foreign filmmakers alike have continued to this day to draw upon the narratives, the aesthetics and the mythology of the revolution, with recent titles including Chicogrande (Felipe Cazals, 2010) and El atentado (The Assassination Attempt) (Jorge Fons, 2010). This tendency sometimes monumentalizes, but often renews, contemporary imaginaries of this crucial and evocative period of Mexican history. Such constant challenges to and reworking of narratives about the past should be welcomed.

Villa was arguably the most complex, evocative, and ambiguous character of post-revolutionary historical narratives.

Notes 1

his category structure, and the essay more T broadly, draws partly on research conducted by Ángel Miquel, Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón, Eduardo de la Vega, Elisa Lozano, Hugo Lara, Carlos Flores Villela, Claudia Arroyo, Alicia Vargas, and Raúl Miranda, the section cura tors of the exhibition “Cinema and Revolution,” directed by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio and re cently on display, under the auspices of the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine), at the Old College of San Ildefonso in Mexico City.

ompadrazgo is the strong emotional bond of C friendship established between the parents and godparents of a child. In Mexican poli tics, it refers to the particular Mexican brand of cronyism based initially on —but by no means limited to— these close relations. It extends to all relations that put personal lo yalties and friendship at the center of political relationships. [Copy Editor’s Note.]

a bola is the name still used in Mexico to L the refer to the masses of the poor who flocked to join the popular revolutionary armies. [Copy Editor’s Note.]

Pedro Armendáriz and other actors in a colorized still from Pancho Villa Vuelve (Pancho Villa Returns), Miguel Contreras Torres, 1949. Carmen Toscano Foundation.

p Políticas migratorias y movilidad laboral en Estados Unidos, España y Singapur Elaine Levine y Mónica Verea editors The authors analize both the migratory flows, and state politics to control and regulate them in the last decades, in three countries: the United States, Spain and Singapur. Their main thesis is that modern states try to control or regulate migratory flows depending on their current economic or political junctures.

Franklin y Jefferson: entre dos revoluciones. Inicios de la política internacional estadunidense Ignacio Díaz de la Serna Until the early nineteenth century, the United States performed an astute balancing act between its own interests and those of France and its former colonial master, Great Britain. This book analyzes the conditions in which it carried out that policy based on the diplomatic achievements of its two main architects, Franklin and Jefferson.

CISAN

s Diplomacia en la era digital. La ayuda alimentaria como maniobra neoliberal Camelia Tigau Understanding diplomacy as a series of subterfuges, tricks and other methods of war has had a negative impact on international relations. This includes the issue of food: neoliberal maneuvering has blocked the flow of aid from the rich to the poorest countries. Undoubtedly, moving ahead toward a more democratic or network-based diplomacy would renew the ways individuals, communities, provinces and nations relate to each other, just as this work suggests.

Los contornos del mundo, globalización, subjetividad y cultura Nattie Golubov y Rodrigo Parrini editors Traders and narcissists, intersexed people and Newyoricans, the dead and the “living,” migrants, consumers, borders that move, entrepreneurs of their own lives, Zapatistas and social-justice-fighter cybernauts: these are all actors in this book. Its aim is to respond to a substantive question: what are the relationships among the process of globalization, subjectivity and culture? The result is complex, contradictory and surprising.

For further information contact Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, CISAN Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Torre de Humanidades II, piso 9, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 México, D.F. Tels. 5336-3558, 5336-3601, 5336-3469 y 5623-0015; fax: 5623-0014; e-mail: voicesmx@servidor.unam.mx

an Homage to Carlos Monsiváis

Mexico since September 111

Saúl López/Cuartoscuro

by Carlos Monsiváis

On First Impressions of an End of the World And that day, as the hallucinated dust spreads through the city, among inconceivable versions of flaming swords (planes) and skywriting (explosions), the great dusty cloud began what was unanimously called an “apocalypse.” And the thought of Apocalypse Now fed the visual and auditory testimony of a planet glued to radios and televisions, anxiously surfing the web, never sated with the flow of images. And that day, the first of the Century of Enormous Distrust, disasters of urban Mother Nature came together: flames, dust, the fall of challenges into the sky, rubble, panic that is the blare of survival, and the transformation of ruins into omens. And from the encounter of the depth of rancor and the so lidity of the latest technology emerge those mythical beasts, the unexpected horsemen of those moments and those cit ies: the hatred that is a religion made only of sacrifices; the

arrogance that is the dogma of the structures that “immortalize” themselves; the will of a few who offer their lives to strike a death blow to such anthropomorphic symbols. The tragedy is as innumerable as the ways of perceiving it: people jump out of buildings, firefighters and police of ficers do their duty, twenty-first-century patriotism finds its homeland in human rights. Viewers abyss —the verb is descriptive— in front of their sets. Never have so many seen the same thing for so long; never have so many expressed their solidarity with such similar words; never have so many —the rating of history— concen trated so passionately on the fascination of horror. What can be said or thought about an apocalyptic land scape? And that day, we all knew at the same time that it was the end of any justification of terrorism and the beginning of a new rule: prophesies are only spoken after they have been fulfilled. We’re in the know: terrorism is the Evil of theologies 65

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Iván Stephens/Cuartoscuro

Carlos Monsiváis as Testimonialist

arlos Monsiváis sent this perceptive, poignant piece in response to a call for testimonios aiming to document the myriad transborder-wise ripple effects of post-September 11, 2001 times. With his customary graciousness, Monsiváis readily responded by sending his testimonio through cyberspace, adding a note that he thought this project was a valuable documenting effort in which he was happy to participate. Monsiváis’s primary intellectual concern and focus was Mexico, laying bare its fragilities and strengths, its inner struggles and relationships beyond its borders, including the ongoing grating of the Mexico-U.S. border, that “herida abierta” (open wound), as Chicana Gloria Anzaldúa has termed it, opening up in hurt far beyond the geopolitical drawn line. Monsiváis was in a sense a testimonial writer, forever documenting the times in Mexico, its political and social ailments, its pain and, yes, also its laugher. His characteristic sense of humor permeated his chronicles of a Mexico as it was becoming, up into our present. This piece brings to the forefront Monsivais’s acute feeling for how a single event in the U.S —he identifies it as a tragedy, without a doubt— had myriad repercussions, ones that he frames here to illustrate —through gross facts as well as slippery nuances— how September 11, 2001 became a statement of what globalization deeply signifies for Mexico. May his words become a noble legacy for us and a true tribute to him. He shall be missed by many.

Claire Joysmith Researcher at cisan 66

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because its first victim is its very cause, and in the face of scenes from the end of the world, we think of the transcenden tal, the banal, our families, the images that envelope us and change us, where the worst that could happen has already happened to some of us.

Planet of Dust What do ordinary citizens —almost everybody— know about terrorism? The word evokes a universe of conspiracies, secret camps, safe houses, forgetting the cause in favor of vengeance against its enemies or against people who don’t even know it exists. After September 11, Mexicans justly rejected terrorism. However, unfortunately, there was no serious, systematic effort to understand the reasons for the extermination without jus tifying it in the least. Terrorism is an offense against laws, human rights, lives, property, the very peoples it purports to defend and whose humiliations and suffering unfailingly mount. And up until that moment, terrorism had been observed by sector; after September 11, we all unendingly watch the hijacked plane crash against the second of New York’s Twin Towers. And we all ask ourselves: how did we get here? Is it just madness? Up to what point does the failure of causes, with the degree of justice they contain, turn into homicidal fury?

most all societies around the world, without clear definitions of globalization. Undoubtedly, we are globalized, but what does that mean? Is it simply getting the latest fashions and events at the same time in every country? In Mexico, radio and television reach 95 percent of places, and, after the terrorist attack, all the channels and stations spent weeks covering the events, finding out the identity of the victims, highlighting the heroism of police and firefighters, the acts of protest and memorials, the mourning in the United States and the world. There is no other topic of conversation, and, for example, mu sician Karl Heinz Stockhausen and essayist Jean Baudrillard are vigorously censored for frivolously commenting about the “portentous aesthetic act” of the collapse of the towers. Amidst bewilderment and confusion, one idea (a fact) is indisputable: the radical change in history, a day in the life of New York, is literally an international leap revealing the power of violence in the strict hierarchies of globalization and exhibiting the intolerability of the arguments of intolerance.

People talk increasingly about state terrorism, but Edward Said is opposed to the term because he says it is better to continue talking about government repression, being specific in each case. Bush is not a terrorist, but he is the promoter of genocides.

   People talk increasingly about state terrorism, and irrefut able proof is offered: the legalization of torture by the U.S. government, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the pris on systems of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the genocide in Serbia or Darfur, the dirty wars in Latin America, and a very long etcetera. However, and with solid reasons, Edward Said is opposed to the term because he says it confuses the actions, and it is better to continue talking about government repres sion, being specific in each case. Bush is not a terrorist, but he is the promoter of genocides.    In the first months, reactions in Mexico to September 11 vary after the first impulse to horror. Globalized with no hope of a remedy —and no protest, either— by the events of that day and those that followed, Mexican society finds itself like al

A whirlwind of hypotheses and interpretations is un leashed and, like everywhere, in Mexico the revenge-seeking version also circulated for a while: “the United States was asking for it, and, as you sow, so shall ye reap.” This outlook, mor ally and politically unacceptable, is rooted in the perverse idea that guides the right-wing vision of massacres and genocides: countries, communities, creeds “ask for it.” The victims are in variably the guilty parties. For those convinced of the Judg ment Day Lottery, it does no good to locate those responsible for terrorism, the criminal castes, the financial perversions, and the psychopathological tremor of fanatics, who set themselves up as judges, pass sentence, and attempt to punish symbols regardless of who represents them. But the sectarian right and left agree on refusing to make the effort to interpret, and for that reason they do not comprehend the essential point: there are no guilty victims. And generalizations about ter rorism ignore what has been more than proven: in the first place, the ones who do the reaping are not the 67

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ones who do the sowing, but those close to where the crop comes up (and in this case, where the clash takes place). In Latin America, the most abject demonstration of ter rorism in the name of social justice has been the Peruvian group Shining Path. Among his demented demands, Presi dent Gonzalo, or Abimael Guzmán, the criminal who presented himself as “the fourth sword of Marxism,” orders the murder of peasants, social leaders, doctors, police officers, soldiers, anyone who gets in the way of “revolutionary purity.” To jus tify it, they talked of the cruelty and racism of Peru’s great landowners and army officers. Though this cruelty and racism is undeniable and central, they do not explain in the least a single one of Shining Path’s crimes. And, in the Basque Coun try, eta is another devastating example. We know this: the monstrous irrationality that says it acts in the name of na tional social justice is one of the great obstacles to the dem ocratic struggle.

The Empire and Its Environs In October 2001, an axiom is propagated almost without the need for words: the center of planetary power is —as always and much more than ever— the United States. The news leaves no room for doubt about the preparations for revenge, the mass detentions of Arabs and Palestinians in the United States, the resurgence of McCarthyism, and the increase in police severity along the border. September 11 shows up and fortifies on the international level the weakness of almost all countries.

The Nationalism of 2001 The myths and legends about Mexican nationalism belong for the most part to a past that has basically disappeared. In recent years, that nationalism has lost its old militant edge, limiting itself to rituals, to the enthusiasm for sports and food, in the traditions that have been salvaged from the shipwreck imposed by savage modernization… and to the permanent core of rancor against the empire. It is obvious that there is no longer any indignant nationalism in the face of the loss of half of Mexico in 1847, or any of that old organized antiYanqui-ism. Today, the “gringo” has stopped being strict ly “the other.” He is the other, yes, and the neighbor of the other, who turns out to be our cousin, sister, or the 68

The irrefutable globalization imposed by September 11 is subject to the most devastating criticism, intensified with the war in Afghanistan and, above all, the monstrous invasion of Iraq and the chain of grotesque lies spewed to try to justify it for a while. uncle of that sedentary man or woman who did not cross the border. The weight of successive migrations changes extra ordinarily the culture and economy of Mexico (with a big im pact in its politics), and the notion of the United States has been changing, without the characterizations of racism and labor abuses fading in the least. Nationalism cannot escape from this influence, and is transformed, on the one hand, into rituals of self-pity, and on the other hand into a grieved, amused national conscience that oscillates between pride and despondence. When U.S. nationalism overflowed very recently, Mexicans were quite aware of it. They have never experienced nor will they ever experience anything like that: the chauvinistic obsession that waves the national flag at all hours, says it is in “the promised land,” and proclaims the twentieth and twenty-first centu ries “the American centuries.” But the absence of a bellicose nationalism with that much resonance does not eliminate na tional feeling nor its diversifications, and the irrefutable glob alization imposed September 11, like it or not, is subject to the most devastating criticism, which intensifies with the war in Afghanistan and, above all, with the monstrous invasion of Iraq and the chain of grotesque lies spewed to try to jus tify it for a while. We are globalized, yes, but how? The unequal and com bined globalization can be felt in Mexico in innumerable ways. Among the most outstanding:

• Submission in Mexican government practices, subjec tion to a series of decisions by the U.S. government. This is expressed very elementally in President Fox’s recommendation to Commander Castro in March 2002, two days before the Monterrey Summit, a conversation divulged by Castro, who completely forgot an explicit commitment and in retaliation for Mexico’s vote on human rights in Cuba: Castro: Tell me, what else can I do to be of service to you?

A n H omage to C arlos M onsiváis

Iván Stephens/Cuartoscuro

What the post-9/11 landscape adds is the knowledge of the style and dimensions of dependency, the dependency born of the lack of alternatives. It resuscitates the old idea of Mexico as “the back yard,” and in the face of that, there are no organized responses.

• Determinism, a primordial part of Latin America and Mexico’s psychology and culture that becomes more vigorous with globalization. Not only does the society of national states go into crisis, but also, due to trans national bodies, the problems of transborder space be come sharper, accenting the unfair division of labor and social inequality. “What can be done against this?” Latin Americans have long asked themselves. And, af ter September 11, the question fades away partially as the levels of impotence in the face of the aim of un seating the Islamic world are verified.

• Sovereignty, a term that in the past was unquestionable, is now subjected to many revisions and polemics. The behavior of the great powers enormously affects the en vironment (climate changes, the hole in the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect), and the life of every country is powerfully intervened in by holding companies, mon etary crises, the price of oil, wars, cable television, and the conception of the fashionable, understood as cloning societies. “There are no borders anymore,” say those who never comment on the atrocious mistreatment of Mex icans in the U.S. border area. And the disappearance of the signs of Mexican sovereignty increases. How is na tional sovereignty defined in the face of transnational structures? In day-to-day practice, national states’ freedom of movement is considerably reduced. Their capabilities for international action shrink, and sovereignty is frag mented by national, regional, and international factors. This, something that should be carefully evaluated, im mediately hooks up with a determinist mentality, and after September 11, it is commonplace to hear people alluding to “the despair of sovereignty”: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

• Drug trafficking, the criminal “parallel state” that devas tates societies, contributes enormously to the massive spread of crime, and the “Trojan horse” of U.S. police in Mexico’s internal affairs.

Fox: Well, basically, you can not attack the United States or President Bush; raher, [we should] limit ourselves. A recommendation like this would have been incon ceivable even under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, also submissive to U.S. administrations, but careful about the legal forms of nationalism. What does “limit our selves” mean? In this context, it seems to mean remem bering our second-class status and never attempting to leave it: “I know my place.” President Fox belongs to a generation of Mexicans marked by pragmatism in its most elementary form, the kind that dictates that who ever holds the most power hold the keys to all forms of behavior. The conclusion would be that whoever rules gives the orders and channels the collective psychology.

In short, what the post-9/11 landscape adds to spe cific knowledge is the knowledge of the style and dimen sions of dependency. This is not mental dependency —there, there would be no collective decisions, but only strictly individual ones— or even economic and 69

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Despite the overused term, September 11 is a historic turning point. The notion of “spectacle” changed profoundly; humanist reactions of solidarity were put to the test; and the undeniable powers were reaffirmed including all their vulnerable points. political dependency —although that certainly exists and in multiple ways. Rather, it is the dependency born of the lack of alternatives. It resuscitates the old idea of Mexico as “the back yard,” and in the face of that, there are no organized responses.

means more people educated in passiveness and also, in many and an increasing number of cases, it means people more willing to defend human rights wherever they are in fringed. So, the murders, the beatings, the Migra’s arbitrary treatment, and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision de claring a Mexican worker’s rights non-existent have been met with indignation in Mexico. Similarly, although the war in Afghanistan did not spark much visible response —bare ly a few letters to the editor— the events in Iraq have been met with almost unanimous response from the collective consciousness.

On the Congress of Points of View And the Morals of the Story Becoming Aware in Times of Conformity If the hegemony of U.S.-style globalization was inevitable, the emergence of a very recently perceptible critical sensibil ity is not so foreseeable. Certainly, it did not look possible. The wrongly dubbed “global-phobes” have been rather in visible in Mexico, even though many understand the justice of their demands and that the real “global-phobes” are those who belong to the capitalist minorities who attack the plan et’s resources and freedoms.2 However, despite the poverty of left organizations and the weakness of civil society —more a project than a reality— the attacks against Mexicans in the United States are now encountering greater resistance in Mexico. We should emphasize here what is already obvi ous: if in Mexico anything has changed the perspective of Mex ican communities abroad, it is globalization. Unannounced, but ferociously, globalization has informed us of the obvious: destiny hangs from the thread of computer keyboard strokes; investments have no homeland; homelands have no invest ments; in the face of neoliberalism there are no alternatives; and neoliberalism is not and cannot be an alternative for the ma jorities and responsible minorities. Globalization exterminates any fetishism or volunteerism of “what comes from outside.” If “what comes from outside” is already here inside, why not accept that Mexicans abroad also be globalized in a tyrannical, monopolistic way? The kinds of opportunities available dif ferentiate us; the enormous difficulty in taking advantage of them makes us similar. Being “globalized” means being more informed about very different events, among them the immense obsta cles for dealing with political and financial power. It 70

Despite the overused term, September 11 is a historic turn ing point. On that day, the consciousness of globalization was formally launched without exception. The notion of “spec tacle” changed profoundly; humanist reactions of solidarity were put to the test; and what are undeniably the powers that be were reaffirmed including all their vulnerable points. In this process, the invasion of Iraq radicalizes people. In the countries of the old Third World, September 11 has been until now the ominous, flashy beginning of the destruction of their expectations. For Mexicans, the awareness of real, inevitable globalization has meant and continues to mean too many things, among them the strengthening of the defense of human rights, resistance to racism, the oppressive feeling of limits, medium- and long-term despair, the clarification of their de mands and the possibilities to organize in the United States in a much-needed, broad alliance with the Hispanic commu nities, another great protagonist of recent years.

Notes 1

his text was previously published in Spanish in Claire Joysmith, ed., T Speaking desde las heridas. Cibertestimonios transfronterizos/transborder (September 11, 2001-March 11, 2007) (Mexico City: cisan/itesm/Whittier College, 2007). [Editor’s Note.]

I n Mexico, the media dubbed the global justice movement that first made a name for itself in the 1999 Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization summit a movement of “global-phobes.” [Translator’s Note.]

Carlos Monsiváis Catechizing Mephistopheles1

Max Nuñes/Cuartoscuro

Adolfo Castañón*

“So, do you believe in God?” Monsiváis asked me. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I only know that He believes in me and in you, otherwise we wouldn’t even be here.” “Death is a fiesta and a day for staying in to observe it: an empty space on the calendar in whose void we all participate.”

few weeks ago, Carlos Monsiváis participated in a col loquium about Alfonso Reyes at El Colegio de Mé xico. He said that Reyes was more widely known than his writings. As he left the conference, I told him that more than 60 anthologies had been published of Alfonso Reyes’s literary work. Now I think that, just like Alfonso Reyes, Car los Monsiváis is very well known, but read very little. It is up to us, his readers and editors, to prepare the written road to re-transmit his legacy. *Mexican writer and editor.

Monsi, Carlos, Carlos Monsiváis, Carlos Monsiváis Ace ves (1938-2010), the prodigious son that it fell to Doña Esther to give birth to, was born in Mexico City when the Spanish Civil War was about to end and World War II was about to begin. Just like José Emilio Pacheco and Sergio Pitol, the other two musketeers of the threesome whose D’Artagnan would be Elena Poniatowska, he lived his childhood in the Mexico of Manuel Ávila Camacho and Miguel Ale mán, and his long adolescence in the times of the pres idents named Adolfo: Ruiz Cortines and López Mateos. It would fall to them to manage the lottery of the 71

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Carlos memorized a good part of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. This training made him a precocious dissident: an already cultured, Protestant child in the midst of intransigent, nationalist Catholics. pri’s

presidentialism —in allusion to Gabriel Zaid— indi rectly consolidated by Marshall Plan proceeds/loans. It is well known that thanks to his heroic, indestructible mother, nourished with the unleavened bread of Biblical cul ture, the child who was Carlos memorized a good part of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament in the classical trans lation by Cipriano de Valera and Casiodoro de Reyna. This training led him to being a precocious dissident: an already cultured, Protestant child in the midst of intransigent, nationalist Catholics. Very soon he arrived at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He studied economics, law, letters, philosophy, history. He was fellow students and made friends with economists like Rolando Cordera, lawyers like Carlos Fuentes and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, and a miscel laneous group made up of Javier Wimer, Rafael Ruiz Harrell, Margarita Peña, the Galindo sisters,2 Marco Antonio Montes de Oca, Arturo Azuela, and Daniel Reséndiz Núñez, among many others. He collaborated in student magazines like Medio siglo (Half Century), of which he was the managing editor. Doctor —that’s what they called him— Elías Nandino opened the doors of his magazine Estaciones (Seasons) to Carlos Monsiváis and José Emilio Pacheco. This is where young Carlos would publish some of 72

his first essays and articles. A little later, he collaborated at the University Radio and in the Revista de la Universidad de México (Mag azine of the University of Mexico), edited by Jaime García Terrés and in the company of a brilliant generation of writers and artists like Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Juan García Ponce, Emi lio García Riera, Vicente Rojo, Manuel Felgué rez, José Luis Cuevas, José de la Colina, and José Luis Ibáñez, among many others. Before he turned 30, his fine-tuned, refined vocation for letters led him to publish Antolo gía de la poesía mexicana del siglo xx (Anthology of Twentieth-Century Mexican Poetry) (1966), which became an indisputable literary ref erence work. Film and criticism, poetry and humor, politics and caricature, the novel and sociology, legi timate theater and teatro de carpa,3 the visual arts, the history of art: all this and more seemed to interest this author who defies classification, a dedicated reader and curious wanderer, a son of the prodigious Portales neighborhood. In 1968, his contemplative itinerary would become an activist one and the road to Damascus of the committed spec tator. The 1968 —and subsequent years’— experience of violence and political persecution would mature in Monsi váis a civic conscience and a incensed apocalyptic design vis-à-vis political institutions. That substantive experience would accompany him to the end of his days, as proven in his books about ’68, published jointly with journalist Julio Scherer. His book of articles and essays, emblematically en titled Días de guardar (Days to Stay In and Observe) is a token of that moment. Emblematically: “to stay in,” an allusion to fasting and a curfew, a tacit evocation of both abstinence and repression. Along with José Emilio Pacheco and Vicen te Rojo, Carlos Monsiváis was invited by the charismatic Fernando Benítez to head a weekly literary supplement. He would end up accepting the editor’s post in the weekly mag azine Siempre! (Always), founded by José Pagés Llergo. There, Monsiváis would reveal one of his many virtues: that of edi tor and master of ceremonies, the shepherd of the words of others, and head-hunter (a term that had yet to come into vogue), importer and translator of esteemed and precious goods of the imagination and, above all, that of a surrepti tious commentator on today’s world. It would be in the pag es of Siempre! that Monsiváis would launch a camouflaged, implacable “war machine” that was simultaneously both amus

A n H omage to C arlos M onsiváis

ing and critical —and critical because it was amusing: the section “Por mi madre, bohemios” (For My Mother, Bohe mians), a kind of forensic sottisier. There, the committed audience could take comfort by dotting the “i’s” and the “j’s” of the silly, unconscious, or even intentional statements squan dered on the political stage by different pachyderms, flatfoots, parasites, and sea-urchins that give voice to our country’s political and business class, and would ironically help to “doc ument our optimism.” Carlos Monsiváis had found a vein whose course would lead him to the most out-of-the-way dives of the second-rate members of the dominant entrepre neurial and financial class. At the same time, in this famous, unforgettable section, Carlos would display his stylistic tal ents as the author of impeccable, parodies that bloodied their subjects, incisive vignettes and written portraits of both men tionable and unmentionable public figures —as Jesús SilvaHerzog Márquez said, his art as a portraitist is as impeccable as it is implacable. Together with oblique denunciation, he gave himself up to the healthy exercise of the parody of manners, gestures, and affected displays of emotion. Monsiváis’s Protestant roots made him a kind of smiling, critical knight errant. He himself would say in his Autobiografía precoz (Precocious Autobiog raphy) how passionately he had read John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as a child. This reference is by no means trivial if we realize that Bunyan’s book is the root of the modern novel and that Franz Kafka’s The Trial can be read and taken apart in the light of this parabolic piece of fiction. Is it possible to read Carlos Monsiváis’s ebullient writing as a kind of echo of the books by Franz Kafka and John Bunyan? Carlos Monsiváis’s coronation as the editor of La Cultura en México (Culture in Mexico) supplement —the place where this author met him in 1974— would confirm him as a kind of guru and —for some leftists— the successor of the Di vine Voice that watches over children from the clouds. It would also help him open the doors to the media, radio and televi sion, pseudo-sunlit places from which that never-rancorous spider named Carlos Monsiváis would greet his growing audience. Little by little, Carlos’s style began to change and become cleaner and, if it can be put this way, classical: the baroque, the slight of hand, and the affected displays of emotion of a parody of consciousness began to turn into a transparent mask. The founder of the new Mexican journalism —a mix of mestizo, criollo, and “criollo-naco”—4 began to transform himself, and the essayist of Días de guardar and Escenas de

pudor y liviandad (Scenes of Modesty and Levity) would give way to the prose-writer of Entrada libre (Free Admission), one of his most lucid books, Aires de familia (The Family Air), and Imágenes de la tradición viva (Images of the Living Tradition), works in which the author seems more concerned about the survival and staying power of his discourse than about closely conforming to the mannerisms of a suburban Oscar Wilde. Better known as a writer of journalistic articles than as the author of fiction and fables, Monsiváis also has an imaginative strain in him like the one oriented by the Nue vo catecismo para indios remisos (The New Catechism for Remiss Indians), in which the charming trickster who se duces with his flute is capable of sending all us lemmings, denizens of the library, over the cliff.

Monsiváis would display his stylistic talents as the author of impeccable parodies that bloodied their subjects, incisive vignettes and written portraits of both mentionable and unmentionable public figures. Definitive in this process was his reading-based friend ship with Daniel Cosío Villegas, a figure Monsiváis is not usually associated with, but with whom he does have affini ties in his vigorous defense of secularism and civic probity, with Octavio Paz, and I would even say, with Gabriel Zaid, his loyal antipode. His simultaneous participation in the broadcast media and the press, his missionary vocation that prodded him to take the roads of a kind of shaman’s dance around its hounded prey —the press?— his undoubted as ceticism and self-denial, his searing sense of humor and his vocation for the joy crystallized in a poem and in a work of art, his mania for libraries, his avid collecting that prompted him to set up a space like the Museo del Estanquillo (Corner Store Museum): all this made Carlos Monsiváis an enigmatic fig ure, tense and, like someone hung on a cross whose horizon tal would be the instant but fleeting and forgetful movement of the media, and whose vertical would be represented by the line of community civic consciousness and of the written word in code that was both testimony and prophecy. More than Christian, and despite his Protestant edu cation, Monsiváis’s was a culture avid for modernity, thirsty for values like those personified by the gods of Greek mythology and inherited by modern-day Hel 73

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lenists —from Walter Page on— and very particularly by a handful of devotees of Greece who made up the Athenaeum group, headed by Pedro Henríquez Ureña and Alfonso Re yes. While his virtues as a disinterested spectator and teacher have already been pondered, his capacity for reading all the newspapers before eight in the morning, his sense of humor, and his almost instinctive ability to reduce to the absurd the plots and scenery of book-learned and political consciousness and the dust of the hours projected on cinema and television screens, the intellectual, creative vigor of that treatise-writer of practical and theoretical ease —both read and experienced— means that Monsiváis continues to be an enigmatic, charis matic figure in terms of what was easy and what was difficult for him, his faltering, temptations, and exaltations. An untranslatable figure, like cinema before Lumière, whose glow may have to be explained to future generations who are already peeking around the bend in the river. That won’t be so diffi cult. In Carlos Monsiváis’s alternative current are combined the Burrón-type comic book,5 and theology à la Bultmann,

red-white-and-green gossip,6 the unforgettable anecdote, and Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin’s principle of hope. These are some of the reasons that feed the fire of that civic fiesta of the word that was and is his polymorphous writing.

Notes This article (ver con cris) The author refers to Carmen and Magdalena Galindo, currently professors at the unam —of literature and economics, respectively— and wellknown journalists. [Editor’s Note.] 3 Teatro de carpa (“tent theater”) is a form of popular theater, particularly prevalent in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s, that mixes circus specta cles, political satire, and vaudeville-type acts. [Translator’s Note.] 4 Criollo refers to those born in Mexico but of Spanish descent (whites) during the colonial period, while naco, originally used to denote indigenous people, has now become a more general disparaging term for someone who is crude and ignorant, with the obvious racist connotations. [Trans lator’s Note.] 5 This refers to a very popular Mexican comic book, La familia Burrón (The Burrón Family) that depicts the lives and idiosyncrasies of a typical urban, lower-middle-class family. [Translator’s Note.] 6 This is a reference to the colors in the Mexican flag. [Translator’s Note.] 1 2

Nostalgia for Monsiváis1

Sáshenka Gutiérrez/Cuartoscuro

Jezreel Salazar*

he first thing I ever read by Monsiváis was a brief ar ticle in a semi-pornographic magazine that used to come out in the 1970s, Eros. The title seemed original and interesting: “Es muy Molesto/Tener que llegar a Esto/ Tener que Menear el Tiesto/Para poder mal Vivir (Impresio nes)” (It’s Really a Drag/To Come to This/To Have to Shake Your Booty/To More or Less Scrape By [Impressions]). When he wrote it in 1975, I hadn’t been born yet; I first came across it when I was a teenager in high school. I remember it well because the author’s language caught my eye right away, a style I had never come across or read. The choice of words

*Mexican writer.

and the way of arranging them inside the phrases, creating images that were both ironic and poetic, made the story a kind of secular revelation. At least, that’s what it produced in me: the feeling of a truth revealed about the day-to-day world, an easeful, playful version of reality. Right away I bought a lit tle book of his, Los mil y un velorios. Crónica sobre la nota roja en México (One Thousand and One Wakes: Chronicle of the Crime Page in Mexico), published by Alianza —a corrected, expanded version of this book came out recently. I found there exceptional lucidity, together with a jocular look at something that until then I had only seen as melodra matic. And from then on, I was hooked, and little by little I discovered the rest of his work. I stand cor 75

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rected: I discovered part of his work, because, clearly, due of his efficient, speedy, super-fertile pen, I will never be able to get through it all —something which seems both magnificent and terrible. When I heard about the death of Monsiváis and heard the mournful tone of those around it, I remembered his sense of humor, that constant facetiousness that gave him a cer tain childlike air, as though he had been playing a prank when he was making fun of reality —you really had to be quick to know if he meant things literally or if his words hid some irony that could make you end up the object of fun. Of course, I thought that in place of paying homage, serious faces, and unending condolences, he would have preferred that some body perform a parody in his name, a Marx Brothers’ film be shown, or for Jis and Trino to draw a grotesque comic strip about his wake.2 Some years ago, when he was given one of

In Monsiváis’s work you can see not only the depth of his critical interpretations about what is Mexican, but what the failed novels of Carlos Fuentes did not achieve: narrating the great Human Comedy à la Mexicana.

his innumerable awards, he said, “My vanity is intact, locked up in a strongbox, and there’s no way of getting it out….Un fortunately, I only brought words against myself, and I can’t use them, because I’d be behaving badly given what has been said about me here. But another time, I’ll explain why this is all false.” Contrary to the national custom of melo drama and facile tears, Monsiváis always went with his sense of humor, his lively thirst for shenanigans, and jocular irony, particularly when it was a matter of talking about him self. And that attitude is precisely one of his legacies that I hope survives. In addition to new characters, voices, tones, and treatments that had not existed before, as well as the renovation of dif ferent unorthodox literary devices, Monsiváis contributed to Mexican literature a new way of looking at reality, a privileged, unique perspective for making an inventory of the world in highly creative terms that always implied finding a humor ous, de-sanctifying key. In a tradition dominated by se riousness, solemnity, and the existential question of identity (Paz, Rulfo, Fuentes, Elizondo…), Monsiváis, continuing Novo’s work, reclaimed laughter as a means 76

to deal with an adverse reality. By being anti-solemn and ir reverent, Monsiváis’s work ends up as a breath of fresh air amidst literary priggishness and solemnity. This is an unpar alleled parody writer —only Ibargüengoitia is on his level in Mexican letters. The different kinds of irony he practiced deserve a study that has yet to be done. Christopher Domínguez Michael said that Monsiváis deserves the greatest praise that can been given to an intel lectual in Mexico because without his work, the attempt to create a Mexican democratic, liberal culture would be incon ceivable. Though limited to the political virtues of his legacy, this accolade takes on meaning if we relate it to literary intent and innovation practiced by the maximum exponent of lit erary journalism in Mexico. In contrast to what his detrac tors think, Monsiváis’s work has undeniable aesthetic worth, and at its highest point, it was the expression of a highly reno vating dynamic. His work —multifaceted, variegated, and practically unfathomable in its vastness— is the original synthesis of diverse literary traditions: English satire, nine teenth-century literary journalism, Biblical language (in the translations of Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera), modernist poetry, the chronicles of the Indies, the essay-like fiction of Borges and Reyes, the new American journalism. His is a unique, unrepeatable language. As Sergio Pitol has said, the passion for form and an interest in popular topics do not usually go hand in hand. His eccentric style is one of the live liest forms of expression invented by Mexican literature. After his death, a public cultural official remembered him by saying that it was a shame Monsiváis had not written more really literary texts. This kind of prejudice permeates people’s judgements about Monsiváis’s work, as though because of its referential nature, the feature article could not be con sidered literature. With Monsiváis, this is clearly not the case. His capacity for recreating atmospheres, building characters, setting a solid architecture for the story, and reinventing popular speech through oral means, dialogue, polyphony…all this turns him into an exceptional narrator, with a powerful sense of intrigue, probably derived from his passion for detec tive literature. His chronicles of Mexican life show it:3 in them you can see not only the depth of his critical interpretations about what is Mexican, which prove him to be a unique essayist, but also his gifts as a non-fiction novelist. In my opinion, Mon siváis’s work achieves what the failed novels of Carlos Fuentes did not: narrating the great Human Comedy à la Mexicana. If Monsiváis achieved anything, it was constructing an inclusive, plural, critical literature (behind it, there is a nation

A n H omage to C arlos M onsiváis

al project). The whole and combination of focuses that he handles, the polysemous gaze he proposes and shines on his objects of study, the multiplicity of the voices he includes in his texts, the gamut of (literary, philosophical, historical…) discourses and references he constantly dialogues with, the mix of genres and the diversity of registers and rhetorical devices he resorts to…these all reveal the work of an author who always sought to put down in his own language the voices of others, the composite voice of the public space, as though we were face to face with the pages of a newspaper in which all of society speaks, and is revealed and deciphered by a demi urge who reorganized it to make it accessible to the reader. And herein lies another of his virtues: generosity. I will not recount here the long list of stories that would confirm this. I will just refer to the pedagogical spirit of his work to illustrate it. Monsiváis took from Alfonso Reyes the need to write in a reader-friendly way about the most urgent, all-encompassing matters, always thinking about making the reader an intel ligent accomplice. In this sense, if recovering the value of the “minor,” popular genres questions the very notion of fiction, then Monsiváis also stands up for a political, civic intention that Mexican literature had left to molder in a nineteenth-centu ry, liberal roll-top desk: his writing sought to turn the reader into a citizen, put him/her in contact with modern, democratic values, denounce the demagogy of languages, and make lit erature a matter of interest beyond aesthetic purism and elitism, still so in force in Mexico’s cultural world. Here, I should perform an act of contrition. I am a bit disturbed by the fact that everyone recognizes Monsiváis, but so few read and study him. This paradox explains the recep tion he has had. In this sense, my generation (born in the 1970s) has a conflictive, contradictory relationship with the figure of Monsiváis. In principle, I would say that for young writers, Monsiváis is an uncomfortable reference point. In many cases, interest in his work can only flower after jumping over the hurdles of uncritically created and accepted preju dices. The literary world in Mexico is full of status-related clichés. Opinions in vogue are validated and authors are cel ebrated who the market or misunderstanding have desig nated as “legitimate.” Platitudes are our favorite pulpits. This is why for several years now, supposedly transgressing, icon oclastic refrains have been sung in chorus: “he’s a writer who has nothing more to say”; “a journalist who doesn’t do litera ture, and in any case spends his time on cultural gossip”; “an anachronistic thinker who has not renewed himself and just repeats over and over”; “a patriarch who has no ideas, just quips,”

etc. There is something of the cultural parricide in these —all indefensible— pronouncements. This would have some value if it were based on having read the author and a full knowledge of his work. Unfortunately, this is not the case (Castañón was not in error when he said that his polygraphic nature made Mexico’s most public writer into a truly secret writer). I have the impression that the figure of Monsiváis and his transformation into a legend have a great deal to do with this. As was clear at his funeral, the public personage was overwhelming: everyone thought they knew him just because they had heard him on the radio or read some newspaper article that mentioned his opinions —not always accurate ly— which meant that Monsiváis stopped being read because, “You already knew what he was going to say.” People avoided evaluating his work, replacing that with attacks on his cultural omnipresence, the phenomenon of his persona. A text by Luis

With Monsiváis dies a way of being an intellectual in Mexico. He personified the indispensible conscience, the lucid gaze that could interpret the changes the country was experiencing.

González de Alba entitled “El gran murmurador” (The Great Murmurer) is the paradigmatic example of this ill-intentioned reductionism. Somehow, the public image Monsiváis grad ually acquired worked against him. In any case, this is a clear effect of a process of cultural sanctification and institution alization, the result of the success of his own writing project. On the other hand, what happens to young Mexican writers vis-à-vis Monsiváis is the same thing that happens to certain women who criticize feminism in general and rather blindly: they are incapable of recognizing that the possibil ity of expressing oneself in certain ways, in certain contexts, with different values than those that prevailed in the past, is related exactly to the achievements of what they are criti cizing. Monsiváis is a timely author in the sense that many of his points of view, literary operations, and critical view points still prevail in today’s literature. If the themes and commitments have changed, the determination of style and the unfettered vision underlying his work have spread among young writers. I would even say that Monsiváis’s writing has been central not only to how we conceive of our place in the history of our country, but to how 77

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The work of several dozen highly informed, lucid, disciplined specialists would be required to replace his daily activity and the patrimony he crafted every day.

the very idea of literature is perceived today in Mexico. Who better than Monsiváis has defended dissidence as a driving force for writing in our context, the right to first-person irrev erent expression, the notion of literary creation as a political framework, the recovery of the marginal as a space for ren ovating literature, the use of irony and parody to offer unof ficial versions of history, the need for a literature that breaks barriers —gender, hierarchical, textual…— and dialogue with other forms of discourse? What is actually no longer current is how Monsiváis con ceived criticism of the public space. Clearly, the merely re active form can no longer have the same value in a country that has undergone the profound changes Mexico has in re cent years. The weakening of written culture in light of the rise of the spectacle and the diminishing relevance of the humanities in the public debate are extremely important factors in this process. With Monsiváis dies a way of being an intellectual in Mexico. While for decades he personified the indispensible conscience, the lucid gaze that could interpret the changes the country was experiencing, today that is out of the question. It is impossible to imagine today a writer who could achieve anything like that or who would even be in terested in taking on that responsibility. The way any writer will be received is difficult to predict. There is a great deal of fortuitousness and also whim in what happens to books. Nevertheless, I think that we can say that Monsiváis will be read —and widely— in the future, in part because of his unlimited bibliography. Mexico’s pub lishing world has been enriched by the tens of thousands of pages —let’s be clear, this estimate is as vague as it is moder ate— that Monsiváis wrote and disseminated in books, arti cles, essays, prologues, lectures, interviews, etc., as well as the many, many sources that quote him. If Monsiváis wrote ob sessively, the bibliography that quotes him incessantly continues growing. It’s not a matter of knowing whether he will be read or not in the next five or ten decades, but understand ing what that reading will be like. My opinion is that 78

for a while, he will still be underestimated as long as his pub lic figure continues as one of the great architects of con temporary Mexican culture —cultural underdevelopment is expressed as a complex when faced with authority. Later on, when this fades, little by little other ways of reading Mon siváis will become more popular, which today, even though they can be predicted, still have not become generalized: the great historian of the mentalities of Mexico’s twentieth cen tury, the narrator who practiced a kind of realistic experimental fiction, the great cultural interpreter of our nation, an unpa ralleled literary critic. Each of these ways of reading him will determine what is recovered and what is left behind in Mon siváis’s exhausting work. If readers are looking for testimonies or documentary evidence in his texts, they will hunt for what he published originally in newspapers and magazines. If their interest is in aesthetic values, they will look at his books, which he always revised self-critically. In this regard, it is clear that one of the inevitabilities of literary journalism has to do with its always being written against the clock —Juan Villoro, echoing Fernando Benítez, has said that feature articles are “literature under pressure”— and the only way of dealing with formal errors and imprecise information is to correct them. In any case, what is certainly the case is that we are deal ing here with an author who will never be read in his totality. José Emilio Pacheco said that the meaning of the work of both Reyes and Monsiváis is its variety and ungraspable vastness. That is why any anthology of their texts will always imply a loss. And any edition of their complete works would be an obstacle for approaching the author. In any case, anyone who wrote as a chronicler, bibliophile, polemicist, aesthete, writer of articles, critic of power, collector, historian, film analyst, public opinion maker…cannot be forgotten. The work of several dozen highly informed, lucid, disci plined specialists would be required to replace his daily activ ity and the patrimony he crafted every day. When he was in the hospital, the vacuum created by his absent opinion could be felt in the public sphere. We cannot even begin to calculate how much we will have need of him in the future. Notes This article is Jis and Trino are two well-known Mexican cartoonists. [Editor’s Note.] 3 One very important journalistic form in Mexico is called a “chronicle,” which can be anything from a short newpaper article to a series of books. The chronicle looks at daily life over time or in the present, and is not limited to a historical account without analysis or inerpretation, as the English word implies. [Translator’s Note.] 1 2

Special Section ARIZONA’S SB 1070

The Cascading Effects of Arizona’s sb 1070 An Overview

Henry Romero/REUTERS

Erik Lee*

lthough at the time of this writing, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix has halted the implemen tation of several parts of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 in advance of a more thorough hearing on the measure, the bill itself necessitates a broader rethinking of how the Unit ed States and Mexico interact on a very important yet poor ly addressed policy issue: migration. For this reason, on June 16, 2010, the North American Center for Transborder Studies (nacts) at Arizona State University and the Center for Re search on North America (cisan) at Mexico’s National Auto nomous University convened a number of researchers to discuss sb 1070 in detail. What emerged was a portrait of com plexity at a particularly difficult juncture in the U.S.-Mexico binational relationship as well as the sense of having witness ed a historical milestone with many “cascading” effects and con sequences yet to come. The presentations and articles for the most part focused on recent developments in local and state anti-immigration measures, but in his article, “The Immigration Debate about Mexicans,” Jaime Aguila1 gives some even broader historical context to sb 1070. He focuses on the complex decade of the 1930s, which saw economic catastrophe, repatriation of Mex icans, and Mexican government attempts to reintegrate re * Associate Director, North American Center for Transborder Studies, Arizona State University.

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The enormous increase in Arizona’s Mexican population in the 1990s was largely driven by U.S. border policy to close down San Diego and El Paso, thus enhancing the relative importance of Arizona as a migration corridor.

turning migrants into Mexican society. The short-term vision and subsequent failure of the two countries’ migration-relat ed initiatives was evident for both nations. Aguila highlights Mexico’s “unresponsive bureaucracy” and “corrupt local of ficials,” “U.S. employer’s perpetual demand for labor,” and “lax U.S. enforcement of the border” as evidence for the chronic weakness of both U.S. and Mexican public policy attempts to deal with Mexican migration to the United States and re turn migration to Mexico. Mónica Verea2 comprehensively addresses the story of sb 1070 in “Obama and the Anti-Mexican sb 1070.” Verea points out the electoral context of the law —it was intro duced in a ferocious environment of primary elections in Ari zona. In addition, she emphasizes the enormous increase in the Mexican population in Arizona that came about in the 1990s. This increase, as Verea points out, was driven in large part by U.S. border policy of the 1990s, which largely closed down San Diego and El Paso (through the implementation of Operations Gatekeeper and Hold-the-Line, respectively) and enhanced the relative importance of Arizona as a migra tion corridor. Verea goes on to analyze the ways in which im migration plays into a complex environment of party politics in the United States. In “Human Rights and the Fetishization of sb 1070,” Ari adna Estévez López3 points out the conflict between univer sal human rights and the legal direction taken by sb 1070 and similar measures. Estévez López focuses on the “fetishi zation,” of sb 1070, or an overly rigid focus on the formal le gal issues of sb 1070 rather than the more fundamental issue of migrants and their human rights in the United States. She puts sb 1070 into a broader context when she points out that “the states that approved the most restrictive reforms are the ones that are new destinations for migrants: South Caroli na, Nevada, Arizona, and Oklahoma.” By contrast, states with a longer and more established tradition of migration from Mex ico, such as California, New York, Illinois, and Texas, tend to see more legislation that is protective of migrants’ rights. 80

Doris Marie Provine4 analyzes how sb 1070 fits into an overall picture of contradictions and complexity that charac terizes how we understand immigration in the United States and particularly in Arizona with “Arizona’s New Anti-immi grant Law and Federal Immigration Reform.” In particular, “sb 1070 illustrates how the complex compromise of feder alism that characterizes the U.S. system of government works in a situation of high political anxiety,” according to Provine. Immigration policy is clearly made more difficult by complex local politics in Arizona, particularly in the Phoenix area. As Provine points out, sb 1070 is part of a pattern of similar leg islation introduced in Arizona since the 1990s. The “middle” on the immigration issue has all but vanished in 2010: “In an election year, staking out a stand that falls into a reasonable middle ground is difficult. The Arizona public —or at least its most vocal elements— is clearly aroused.” In “The United States v. Arizona,” Evelyn Cruz5 points out the hard road ahead for sb 1070, major parts of which were enjoined by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton. Cruz gives us a detailed discussion of the major constitutional issues raised by the bill, including concepts such as the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (states’ rights), concurrent power, and the supremacy clause. Cruz emphasizes that “sb 1070 faces an uphill battle, exemplified by the District Court’s order enjoining major portions of the bill from going into ef fect. The phrases thrown around to defend it may play well in the media, but they do not play well in constitutional construction.” In “Arizona’s Law: The Wrong Approach,” Paz Consuelo Márquez-Padilla6 frames the issue as the movement of pov erty toward abundance and the existence of a real transna tional labor market. Márquez-Padilla offers some important statistics for us to anchor our understanding of this movement and labor market dynamic. Namely, she points out the exis tence of 300 million legal crossings from Mexico to the United States every year, as well as the truly impressive wage differ ential between the U.S. and Mexico, which reaches 12:1 in

Special Section

In the new era of “shared responsibility,” this relatively new concept has yet to be applied to international migration. Mexico and the U.S. need new, more creative, and more fully bilateral approaches to this old issue.

some industries. Perhaps most importantly, Márquez-Padi lla confronts the two nations’ radically different perspectives on this issue and argues that both need a different one: “As long as the two countries refuse to see this as a shared phenome non, the situation will continue to be unmanageable.” Silvia Núñez García7 explores the ever-changing charac ter of racism and discrimination in the United States in “On the Labyrinths of sb 1070.” In particular, the discourse sur rounding sb 1070 contrasted with falling crime levels in the Phoenix area are particularly challenging to understand. Nú ñez García links the issue of sb 1070 to particularly racial ized aspects of state and national politics in the United States. The intensely dynamic nature of domestic politics in the United States makes it nearly impossible to predict with any clarity the eventual composition of comprehensive immigration re form. In addition, Núñez points out the difficulty (for many Mexican observers) of fully comprehending the intense anx iety felt by U.S. citizens over the deterioration of the U.S. economy and the enormous political challenges facing Pres ident Barack Obama. She argues that in the current context, we need to recognize and actively address the enormous sociocultural distance between the two countries; strengthen bina tional alliances in order to research the issue in depth in terms of short-, medium-, and long-term goals; and bring additional anthropological and psycho-social analysis to bear on these challenging issues. In his concluding thoughts, Rick Van Schoik8 emphasizes the challenging complexities of the issues raised: “the doubleedged nature of the issue arose over and over again.” Against the backdrop of confounding institutional and bureaucratic asym metries between the two countries, Van Schoik raises the issue of a Mexican border agency and the necessity of enhanced international cooperation on migration. The issue, while an im mensely difficult one for both countries to deal with domesti cally, is too important to push to the bottom of the binational agenda. “The bottom line is that federal inactivity is misguid ed and even dangerous.”

Final Thoughts Though the United States and Mexico share an almost 2,000mile land border, the two countries do not currently possess anything approaching a workable joint framework for address ing medium- to low-skilled labor mobility. This unfortunate gaping deficit in our public policies and binational relations has been left unresolved for decades. sb 1070 underscores this deficiency and, though a local measure, puts the onus square ly on the shoulders of the U.S. federal government. Yet while immigration is a federal responsibility in the United States, the complexity of both the issue and domes tic politics continue to confound our attempts to address it with legislative actions alone. The two nations find themselves in a new era of “shared responsibility”; however, this relatively new concept has yet to be applied to international migration. What we have done up to this point is clearly not working; the issue is impeding us from advancing on a number of other important fronts, and we are clearly unable to resolve it uni laterally. In this age of such immense challenges to our shared security, competitiveness, and sustainability, we are in need of new, more creative, and more fully bilateral approaches to this old issue.

Notes 1

Assistant professor at Arizona State University’s School of Arts and Letters.

Researcher, professor and founding director of cisan.

Researcher at cisan.

Professor in the School of Social Transformation at asu.

linical law professor and director of the Immigration Clinic at asu’s San C dra Day O’Connor School of Law.

Researcher at cisan.

Director of cisan.

irector of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizo D na State University.

The Immigration Debate About Mexicans

Fred Greaves/REUTERS

*Jaime R. Aguila

Minutemen on the Arizona border violently oppose illegal immigration, particularly of Mexicans.

ince the late nineteenth century, Mexicans have been migrating northward into the United States in search of employment opportunities. Over the course of the twentieth century, this group represented a significant seg ment of the immigrant population and labor force within the United States as well as a large percentage of Mexican soci ety. As of 2008, 12.7 million Mexican immigrants lived in the United States and Arizona had 1,784,000 residents of Mexican origin (Mexican born and Mexican-American).1 Although there are no exact figures for the size of the undocumented popu lation, conservative estimates claim that Mexicans represent 60 percent of the approximately 11 million undocumented people. Consequently, the total Mexican immigrant popula * Assistant professor, School of Arts and Letters, Arizona State Uni versity.

tion within the United States represents over 10 percent of the population of Mexico, which in 2010 comes to approxi mately 112,468,855.2 Current debates over illegal immigration from Mexico have ignored, or at best, over-simplified, the longstanding presence of Mexicans in the United States. These disputes mistakenly focus on individuals or segments of U.S. or Mexican society rather than on larger structural issues such as shared histories, free-trade commitments, and international relationships. None theless, such debates are not unprecedented nor have they lessened the size of the migration stream because its geograph ical scope has continually expanded. In the late nineteenth century, the Mexican presence within the United States was made up of semi-permanent enclaves along the border, and then in the 1920s, it spread throughout the Southwest and ar eas such as Chicago, Illinois and Kansas City, Missouri. Today

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Mexicans live throughout the United States and are the fast est growing sectors in areas like the Deep South and the Pa cific Northwest. In Arizona the politics of immigration has reached a crisis of epic proportions. The lives of the immigrants and in many cases their U.S.-born children were being drastically impacted even before Arizona’s sb 1070 was scheduled to take effect on July 29, 2010.3 Many Hispanic residents —and particularly Mexicans— have begun to flee Arizona for fear of sb 1070.4 Such xenophobia is not unprecedented, especially in times of economic crisis. During the Great Depression various pa triotic groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Amer ican Legion led demands in some areas that Mexicans be “repatriated.” The National Club of America for Americans called on all Americans to pressure their government to de port all Mexicans and close the border to all Latin Americans.5 In 1954, the Eisenhower administration instituted Operation Wetback in response to criticism that the growing number of illegal immigrants constituted a serious threat to national se curity. According to the then-commissioner general of the Immigration and Naturalization Service the “alarming, ever increasing, flood tide of undocumented migrants from Mex ico constituted an actual invasion of the United States.”6 However, such outrageous demands by overly vocal fringe groups rarely had any real impact on public policy. At that time the press claimed that Operation Wetback was a tremen dous success. For example, one Los Angeles Times article claimed that illegal migrant arrests in Southern California and Arizona dropped by 44 percent while another article was ti tled “U.S. Patrol Halts Border Invasion.”7 However, since then scholars have questioned the accuracy of the Border Patrol’s count and have noted that the decline in undocumented immigration was only short-term.8 In the twenty-first century the complexity of the issue at hand goes beyond citizenship and begs the question about who deserves the full protection of the state. Should a society’s benefits extend to all people who contribute and labor on be half of that society? Such is the case of Mexican immigrants working and subsisting in the United States over the last 100-plus years. During this period, Mexican immigrant labor has proven indispensable for the success of the U.S. econo my; nonetheless, there is tremendous controversy over their place in society. Mexican citizens working in the United States have sub sisted in precarious circumstances influenced by historical legacies and paradoxical geopolitical factors. They are simul

taneously recruited into the United States, yet loathed in varying degrees depending on the health of the U.S. economy or on the nature of current political issues. Over the course of the twentieth century, the borders of the nation-state have constrained the lives of these transnational migrants and prevented them from sharing fully in the rights promised by either the United States or Mexico. The 1930s is an especially telling decade because of the flagrant abuse Mexicans expe rienced following a period in which they were not only aggres sively recruited to the United States, but when U.S. immigration legislation was constructed and applied in a manner to fa cilitate their entry. Assessing the evolution of the political debates surrounding immigration in the mid- to late-1930s provides significant context on the current controversies not

The Great Depression saw the most extreme racist and negligent treatment of Mexicans, making the 1930s the only decade in which more Mexicans left the United States than entered.

only about immigration, but also about the place of Mexicans in the United States.

Prior to the 1930s From 1900 to 1929, upon arriving in the United States, most Mexicans intended to return home to be reunited with their families. For them the United States represented México de afuera (Mexico abroad), an image founded on their intention to recreate their culture while they resided abroad temporar ily. México de afuera’s population benefited each nation eco nomically and politically. For the United States, Mexicans provided an inexpensive, exploitable, and plentiful labor source. Their presence allowed policy-makers and employ ers to create the myth that they were birds of passage and consequently not a threat to U.S. society like immigrants from Asia or Southern Europe. According to Paul Taylor, a “large part, probably the majority of the Mexican population is mi gratory. It is the most mobile element in our labor supply.”9 For Mexico, unemployed and underemployed Mexicans who left for the United States removed potential supporters of 83

Voices of Mexico • 88

rebellions and enemies of the state. In addition, Manuel Gamio demonstrated the value of remittances, totaling close to US$3 million a year for the Mexican economy. However, Mexican public opinion was mixed regarding the presence of their compatriots abroad; for some it was a tragedy that so many of their countrymen had to leave to support their fam ilies while other sectors accused them of abandoning their homeland.

The 1930s The Great Depression witnessed the most extreme examples of racist and negligent treatment of Mexicans and made the 1930s the only decade in which more Mexicans left the Unit ed States than entered. In addition, the plight of Mexicans at home was not much better. Although Mexican officials pub licly welcomed home their compatriots, their limited resour ces and the economy’s pre-modern condition prevented the state from fulfilling its pledge to aid them on a grand scale. Nonetheless, these circumstances contributed to a unique period in Mexican and U.S. history, which had a significant impact on the status of Mexicans in both nations and on their identity as Americans, Mexicans, or something in between. Many significant and insightful works have been written about the thousands of Mexicans repatriated during the ini tial phase of the Great Depression. The majority of these studies have focused on the repatriation process and its im pact on Mexican laborers and their families primarily while in the United States. However, such monographs as Fran cisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez’s Decade of Betrayal and Mercedes Carreras de Velasco’s Los mexicanos que devolvió la crisis have largely ignored the geopolitical influ ences and the social welfare of Mexicans in the second half of the 1930s. Such endeavors will provide tremendous in sight into the contemporary immigration crisis by providing insightful context. The beloved President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) promised a utopia for all Mexicans, including those who would return from México de afuera. Nonetheless, despite his best intentions and limited government resour ces, his agrarian reform program and nationalization of the Mexican oil industry limited his administration’s ability to implement his socialist agenda. Consequently, many repa triates did not receive sufficient arable land and govern ment support like agricultural credits that were absolutely necessary for their livelihood. These limitations on the part 84

of the Mexican government continue to plague its populace in the twenty-first century. Those who remained in the United States despite the harsh conditions intensified by the Great Depression and pre-existing xenophobia had essentially determined that Aztlán (the United States) was now their homeland. Aztlán’s coming of age is demonstrated by the emergence of political bodies that sought to create American institutions rather than Mexican links. The development of the League of United Latin American Citizens (lulac) in 1929 and the Mexican American Movement in 1934 are examples of groups seek ing to advance an American-based ideology rather than rec reate a nostalgic niche of Mexican society. However, as David Gutiérrez has insightfully demonstrated, such strategies cre ated distinct problems within the Mexican community: “lulac members consistently went to great lengths to explain to any

Those remaining in the United States despite the harsh conditions intensified by the Great Depression and pre-existing xenophobia decided the United States was now their homeland and sought to create American institutions rather than Mexican links.

one who would listen that Americans of Mexican descent were different from (and by implication, somehow better than) Mexicans from the other side.”10 In this era, identity was not sufficiently complex to include all people of Mexican heri tage, but rather segmented the community by citizenship. Such a hierarchy is not necessarily limited to this era since the question of citizen versus non-citizen is one of the central elements of the current immigration debate, as it was for the Italians during the Roman Republican era. However, today the significance of citizenship and civil rights has become more complex. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other racist voting practices used for decades to keep Blacks from vot ing, also aided the Mexican-American community. The re cent extension of the Voting Rights Act should be applauded. However, for the media and much of the United States, the struggle for civil rights is still perceived as a Black and White issue. The recent pro-immigrant rallies, especially those of May 1, have introduced a new era for civil rights driven by a demand for worker’s rights. At the same time U.S. citizen

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ship has grown in importance, but historically Mexican im migrants have had a low rate of applying for citizenship. Historically, both governments discouraged Mexicans from applying for U.S. citizenship, and many Mexicans believed that their Mexican citizenship was their only source of pro tection against abuse from employers and discrimination. However since 1965 the explosion of undocumented immi gration and the inadequate number of legal immigration slots have become the primary barriers for Mexican workers wish ing to obtain U.S. citizenship. ”Only 17 percent of the 1973 cohort of Mexican immigrants had naturalized by 1989…. Mexicans constitute the largest single population of noncitizen legal immigrants present in the United States.”11 The apprehension that contributed to the 1930s mas sive repatriation process bore many similarities to the current state of affairs, especially to outrageous demands by anti-

The apprehension underlying the 1930s massive deportations was similar to the current state of affairs, especially the outrageous demands by anti-immigrant groups to eliminate the presence of Mexicans in the United States.

immigrant groups who want to eliminate the presence of Mexicans in the United States. Current nativists such as the Minutemen claim that ridding the nation of the entire undoc umented population will solve all other domestic problems, such as overtaxed social programs and rising gas prices, and protect us from future terrorist attacks.12 One significant underlying element that nativist groups and policy-makers fail to acknowledge —at least publicly— is that each govern ment is, for the most part, unable to minimize the presence of Mexicans in the United States (both then and now). It was the Great Depression —not public policy— that reduced the northern immigration stream. Xenophobia may have driven many Mexicans and their Mexican-American children home, but unemployment and dwindling economic opportunities were profound aftereffects. A more telling fact was that new legislation was unnecessary for the mass expulsion, and the focus was instead on the enforcement of the laws that had been largely ignored over the course of the previous decade. The same progression has developed today partly as a nativist backlash against the pro-immigrant rallies. A July 31,

2006 New York Times article reported that workplace raids and employer sanctions had increased in recent months. The article indicated that the Bush administration was pushing increased enforcement in order to gain greater political pow er over the battle for immigration reform.13 President Barack Obama’s administration has pushed deportations to record highs since taking office: The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 per cent above the Bush administration’s 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company au dits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush’s final year in office.14

The current administration’s inability to implement immi gration reform should not be surprising since previous attempts dating back to the 1965 Immigration Act have worsened the legal immigration process rather than improving it. The unilateral criticisms against Mexican public policy ignore U.S. immigration policy’s paradoxical attitudes, U.S. employers’ perpetual demand for labor, and lax U.S. border enforcement. Despite such condemnation, the Mexican govern ment maintains significant interest in simultaneously aiding their compatriots abroad and encouraging their return. The 1934-1940 Cárdenas presidency offers an excellent point of assessment because, like no other previous administration, it was committed to implementing the goals of the 1917 Con stitution and sought to include the welfare of its compatriots in the United States as part of its developmental agenda. Ac cording to the 1935 Six-Year Government Plan, encouraging the population of México de afuera to return would help ful fill the objectives of the plan formulated at the Querétaro Convention. Ironically, policy-makers determined that the nation’s small population was one of the most significant bar riers it had to overcome. The plan called for the return of their compatriots abroad in order to lift them out of poverty, and take steps to prevent their departure in the future.15 Of course, these goals were tied to the Cardenist agrarian reform pro gram, which distributed 54 million acres of land to rural families and villages. However, by the end of his administra tion, it was clear that the ejido cooperatives such as the ones in the Laguna region and the henequen plantations in Yucatán were failures due to their declining production. The reasons for the failure were mixed and unfortunately not unfamiliar to Mexicans today: unresponsive bureaucracy, corrupt local 85

Voices of Mexico • 88

officials, parcels of land that were too small and infertile, lack of modern technology and implements, etc. The repatriates remained in dire straights and many would welcome the opportunity to return to the United States through the Bracero Program and the rebirth of the unregu lated immigration process. However, it is important to note that the modern immigration process is not primarily driven by Mexico’s inadequate economy. According to Jorge Du rand and Douglas Massey, ”international immigration does not arise from a lack of economic development, but from development itself.”16 This argument is reinforced by the fact that the number of immigrants entering the United States exploded during the 1940-1970 Mexican Miracle, when ”the economy grew at a rate of over 6 percent per year, a rate su perior to all other Latin American countries except Brazil.”17 During this same period, millions of Mexicans immigrated to

The questions are no longer how did we reach this point or how do we stop this exodus, but rather what does it mean for the future of each society and the space they share physically and ideologically?

the United States as temporary workers, undocumented work ers, and legal immigrants. Mexican immigration to the United States has transcended political systems, economic strate gies, healthy economic times, and not-so-healthy economic periods. Mexican immigration to the United States has grown to become an elemental component of the U.S. and Mexican economies, whose growth for the most part has transcended world wars, governmental changes, economic policies, the Cold War, and the rise of global terrorism. The questions are no longer how did we reach this point or how do we stop this exodus, but rather what does it mean for the future of each society and the space they share physically and ideologi cally? Also, during this same period, many developed nations have received mass immigration induced by similar factors, such as foreign policy, legacies of colonial periods, global ization, and refugee demands. Although the intake of large numbers of migrants has posed significant challenges for receiving countries, their presence has also provided many ben efits, most importantly inexpensive and exploitable labor. In 86

2010, the place of the Mexican immigrant within U.S. society is not only uncertain, but under attack. History demonstrates that immigration is not a problem, but rather the intended and unintended consequence of the economic evolution of each nation and their growing integration.

Notes 1

“ Mexican Immigrants in the United States, 2008: Fact Sheet,” April 15, 2009 and “Demographic Profile of Hispanics in Arizona, 2008,” The Pew Hispanic Center, http://pewhispanic.org/states/, accessed July 24, 2010.

“ Mexico: The World Factbook,” Central Intelligence Agency, https:// www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html, accessed July 24, 2010.

tate of Arizona, Senate. 2010. Senate Bill 1070. Forty-ninth Legislature, S 2d. Session, www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf.

Alan Gómez, “Hispanics flee Arizona ahead of immigration law,” The USA Today, June 9, 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-06-08 -immigration_N.htm.

rancisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal: F Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque: University of New Mex ico Press, 2006), p. 68.

ae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern M America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 155.

“ Illegal Alien Arrests Drop 44% in 1954” January 5, 1955, and “U.S. Patrol Halts Border Invasion,” June 17, 1955, Los Angeles Times.

gai, op. cit., 155; Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration N and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd edition (New York: Perennial, 2002), p. 312; Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Mexican American Labor, 1790-1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), p. 204; Manuel G. Gonzales, Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 175-178.

aul S. Taylor, “Mexicans North of the Rio Grande,” The Survey vol. 66, P no. 3 (1931), p. 136.

avid Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immi D grants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 84.

J orge Durand, Douglas S. Massey, and Emilio A. Parrado, “The New Era of Mexican Migration to the United States,” The Journal of American History vol. 86, issue 2 (1999), p. 532.

avid Schwartz, “Arizona Calls for Crackdown as Immigrants Protest,” D Reuters, May 1, 2006.

J ulia Preston, “U.S. Puts Onus on Employers of Immigrants,” The New York Times, July 31, 2006, at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/ us/31immig.html.

eter Slevin, “Deportation of Illegal Immigrants Increases under Obama P Administration,” The Washington Post, July 26, 2010.

ndrés Landa y Piña, Política demográfica estatuida en el Plan Sexenal A (Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1930), pp. 3-4.

J orge Durand and Douglas S. Massey, “Borderline Sanity,” The American Prospect vol. 12, no. 17 (2001), p. 28.

ouglas W. Richmond, The Mexican Nation: Historical Continuity and D Modern Change (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), p. 315.

Obama and the Anti-Mexican sb 10701 Henry Romero/REUTERS

Mónica Verea*

President Calderón criticized sb 1070 during his last visit to the United States.

sb 1070: Brewer v. Bolton Facing a primary election and convinced it was necessary to resolve a crisis the federal government has refused to fix, Ari zona Governor Jan Brewer signed sb 1070, the Safe Neigh borhoods, Immigration, and Law Enforcement Act on April 23, 2010. The law actually went into effect, with adjustments and restrictions, however, on July 29, 90 days after being signed into law. As originally proposed, the law criminalized undocument ed immigrants and allowed local authorities to detain anyone about whom they had a “reasonable suspicion” to verify their migratory status. The detainees had the obligation of pre senting official identification to prove their legal status, and, if they could not, the authorities could arrest them.1 The * Researcher, professor, and founding director of the cisan (19891997). mverea@servidor.unam.mx.

new law also criminalizes undocumented immigrants who offer themselves for hire in public places and makes it a crime to transport or harbor an unauthorized immigrant, includ ing a family member, if a person knows or “recklessly disre gards” the fact that the individual does not have legal status. To make sure the law is really put into practice, it authorizes residents of Arizona to bring lawsuits against municipalities and law enforcement agencies that limit or restrict the en forcement of immigration law, among other things. That is, they are assuming that because illegal immigrants are by definition in violation of federal immigration laws, that makes them criminals and they can be arrested. sb 1070 was voted exclusively along party lines. No Dem ocrats supported it. That is, this highlights the electoral tenden cies of both Governor Brewer, now facing a primary election challenge in a heated race in this year’s election, and Senator John McCain (R-A), the author of the failed immigration re form bill, also up for reelection. 87

Voices of Mexico • 88

The United States seeks to declare sb 1070 invalid because it creates tougher law enforcement standards than those enacted by the federal government.

In response, the Obama administration’s Justice Depart ment filed a suit against the state of Arizona in an effort to block the law. The United States v. the State of Arizona in federal court in Phoenix seeks to declare sb 1070 invalid be cause it is preempted by federal law and violates the Suprem acy Clause of the United States Constitution by creating tougher law enforcement standards than those enacted by the U.S. government. The Supreme Court has always sup ported the federal government’s primacy in establishing and enforcing immigration policy. sb 1070 goes beyond the intent of federal program 287(g), which allows arrangements with the states to assist in immigration enforcement and which many Latinos and members of Congress have requested be suspended.2 The Justice Department also argued that the state’s interference in immigration policies would inadmis sibly force the federal government to redirect resources away from U.S. government priorities and would trample on the fed eral government’s prerogatives regarding foreign policy. Susan R. Bolton, a federal judge in Arizona appointed by President Clinton in 2000, blocked the enforcement of sev eral provisions of the law last July 29. She found that many provisions of the Arizona statute would interfere with fed eral law and policy. Nevertheless, Governor Brewer said the state would appeal. Bolton said that the Arizona police would have to question every person they detained about their im migration status, which would generate a flood of requests to the federal immigration authorities for confirmations, and would probably inadmissibly burden federal resources. She also considered that there was a substantial likelihood that officers would wrongfully arrest or detain legal resident aliens as well as foreign tourists. For all these reasons, she blocked the possibility for local authorities to detain people who looked like they were undocumented. Although Judge Bolton’s rul ing is not final, it seems likely to at least temporarily halt some of these measures. She must decide in the coming weeks whether the parts of the law she froze should be permanently struck down as unconstitutional. 88

Meanwhile, unionists, activists, and religious leaders, among others, fearful of final approval, have held marches protesting the law in many cities and have asked President Obama and Congress to revise the broken-down immigration system and pass immigration reform. They argue that sb 1070 will incite racist behavior and similar abuses as happened during the civil rights struggles of years ago. They consider that the situation may lend itself to harassing legal residents of Latino origin and encourage other states to put into practice similar or even more severe measures. It is a matter for con cern that the law will jeopardize public safety by making im migrants afraid to contact the police. For many, this kind of law and the debate that has followed its passage can become a hothouse for extremist, racist, and intolerant groups that blame all their problems on immigrants, particularly in times of economic crisis. Civic organizations have organized several marches in cit ies like Dallas, Chicago, and New York, although the largest was in Los Angeles. The National Council of La Raza, the main Latino coalition, called for a boycott on products from Arizo na, and on travel or organizing events there, and for organiza tions to cancel meetings and conventions previously planned with Arizona as a venue, as long as sb 1070 and hb 2162 are not struck from the books. Many city councils from San Francis co to Boston have encouraged boycotting the state.3

Arizona, an Anti-Immigrant State The feeling of the majority of Arizona’s population and of antiimmigrant groups is very similar to what Brewer and McCain have said, in the sense that the law is the result of the federal government’s “failure” not only to stop drug smuggling and illegal entries, but also to discuss and approve a comprehen sive immigration reform, something particularly necessary due to recent surges in violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Similarly, the law expresses the feeling of a population in times of an economic crisis that has severely affected the state, in which immigrants are perceived as responsible for their ills: more than half the population thinks that the Arizona law is “about right” in its handling of illegal immigrants. Arizona is the country’s sixth largest state, with a popula tion of 6.5 million, according to 2009 figures, and a 550-kilo meter border with Mexico. The Latino population has grown from 16.2 percent of the state’s total inhabitants in 1980 to 31 percent in 2009. Only in the last decade, the Hispanic pop

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ulation jumped from 330,000 in 2000 to 560,000 in 2008; estimates put the number of undocumented migrants at 460,000, of whom 94 percent come from Mexico.4 This is why it can be considered an anti-Mexican law. Such a significant hike in immigration to Arizona in recent years is mainly due to the “rebordering” policy the Clinton administration began. Starting in 1992, different operations were established on the southern border with Mexico to build double and triple fences in the areas most traveled by mi grants entering the United States, mainly in California and Texas. This began with Operation Gatekeeper in California, and continued with Blockade/Hold the Line on the Rio Grande and Safeguard in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Detentions increased significantly in Arizona and dropped in California and Texas.5 Seventeen years after these operations were set up, instead of simply reducing the number of en tries, the flow of migrants has changed somewhat:

Higher immigration to Arizona in recent years is mainly due to the “rebordering” policy the Clinton administration began.

ence of undocumented migrants, particularly Mexicans, who now find it more difficult to access education, health care, and jobs, and in general to lead their lives in the community. In 2006 alone, almost 570 bills were introduced in the state about immigration policy-related issues, although many are still pend ing passage or have already been vetoed. Among the most im portant of these are the following:

• The Arizona desert, despite its harsh, dangerous condi tions, has become the favorite crossing point. • Physical risks and accidents have increased, with a death toll of more than 5,000 along the entire border during this period. • People tend to stay longer, meaning that traditional circular migration patterns have been replaced by lon ger stays. • Networks of coyotes, or human smugglers, have begun to participate more, enriching them even more. This makes them the ones who benefit from this reinforced surveillance: at the beginning of the 1990s, they charged US$300, but today they get about US$3500 per cross ing, which is neither necessarily safe nor successful.

To comprehend the full dimension of the “rebordering” pro cess, it should be noted that before it began in 1992, almost 5,000 border patrol officers were watching the border at differ ent points. By 2009, almost 20,119 agents are on the payroll.6 Increased unauthorized migration has had vicious effects on the perception of Arizona citizens, who think that this is the reason spending on education, health, and border rein forcement has increased, thus causing big tensions, reflected in growing anti-immigrant feelings. One example of this is the emergence of the Minuteman Project civic surveillance groups, an initiative that has set a precedent for discrimination. These bitterly divisive feelings have also been seen in the passage of many bills by the Arizona state Congress against the pres

a) Investigating migratory status by local authorities. Local authorities would be able to investigate the migratory status of any detainee and cooperate with federal au thorities (hb 2461 in 2007); police officers would be able to apply immigration law and will get training to do so (iimpact Arizona 2007). Local authorities would have to verify migratory status to register an automobile in the state (hb 2063, hb 2079, hb 2446, HB 2475), recover cars confiscated because the driver did not possess an Arizona driver’s license (Proposition 300 in 2006), and also deny bail to anyone who did not prove legal migratory status (Prop ositions 100, 102, and 103 in 2006). b) Access to public health and educational systems. Undoc umented migrants would not be able to go to health centers or educational institutions (Proposition 200 or hr 4437 in 2004); they would have to prove legal status to be able to go to them (sb 2738 in 2006); the authori ties would be able to denounce those who request these services (hb 2448 in 2006); and they would only be al lowed emergency health care (sb 1137 in 2006). Offi cials would be able to send information regarding the immigration status of any individual for the purpose of determining public benefit eligibility (hb 2807 in 2008). Also, state funds for scholarships or financial aid could be restricted for undocumented migrants (Proposition 300 in 2006). c) Making English the official language (Propositions 100, 102, and 103 in 2006). 89

Voices of Mexico • 88

d) S anctions for smugglers and employers. One bill would allow local authorities to prosecute human smugglers who transport illegal immigrants and make human smug gling a felony punishable by up to three years in prison (sb 1372 in 2005); another would confiscate remittan ces to Mexico alleging that they will be used for drug trafficking or human smuggling (hb 2464 in 2007 and hb 2842 in 2008). Employers would have to swear that they have not knowingly hired an undocumented immigrant. Fines would be a minimum of US$2,500 for a first offense and suspension of the business license for 10 days. If the offense were repeated, it could merit the sus pension or cancelation of the employer’s business li cense and fines of up to US$150,000 (hb 2779 and hb 2745). e) Guest Workers Program. Considered imperative as part of a migratory reform, this kind of program recognizes

During Obama’s 18 months in office, what we have seen is an “enforcement only” policy similar to that of his predecessor George W. Bush.

labor market needs that go unsatisfied by local work ers (hb 2018 in 2006). Between 2003 and 2009, an estimated 1,400 bills have been discussed in different states that would criminalize the presence of undocumented migrants. Of all these, al most 100 were passed, and others were struck down as un constitutional.

The Obama Administration and Congress7 The biggest effect of the Arizona immigration law has been to show up the Congress and the lack of leadership and in terest on the part of the Obama administration in developing a project to partially or fully solve the failings of the weak immigration system. Until before the passage of sb 1070, the president had stayed out of the debate, but he has also 90

not presented an immigration reform bill before Congress as he had promised during his campaign, nor has he lobbied hard in both houses around this issue. But on several occa sions he has come out in favor of fortifying the border and pu nishing employers who hire undocumented migrants rather than establishing a legalization program. After 18 months of his administration’s inaction in this area, President Obama has very astutely made use of sb 1070 to take up the issue of immigration reform in the national debate, pointing out that he considers it urgent and neces sary. In his July 1 speech at the American University, he un derlined the very important role immigrants have played in society, stating, “Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country.” However, he recognized that “each new wave of immigrants has generated fear and resentments to ward newcomers, particularly in times of economic upheav al” like today. The sad truth is that “they live in the shadows; they’re vulnerable to unscrupulous businesses who pay them less than the minimum wage or violate worker safety rules.” He said it would be “both unwise and unfair” to declare a blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants, but added that “it would be logistically impossible and wildly expensive to round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants, and it would tear into the fabric of our country. A program for mass deporta tion would disrupt our economy in ways the most Americans would find intolerable.”8 Despite the fact that President Obama understands the frustration of Arizona citizens at the growing flow of undocu mented migrants, he considers that sb 1070 is the wrong way to resolve the problem. He considers it unconstitutional be cause migration is an issue that comes under federal juris diction, not that of the states. In addition, sb 1070 threatens to undermine the basic notions of fairness as well as the trust between police and their communities, and violates constitu tional rights and the 14th amendment, which guarantees equal ity under the law. With mid-term elections approaching, Obama has pub lically recognized Congress’s lack of “appetite” for a polemi cal, explosive issue like an immigration reform bill, plus the political wear and tear of having labored under the enormous pressure brought to bear during the first year and a half of his term to get the health system reform passed, among oth er priorities. He has publically said that a bipartisan agree ment is indispensable and that 60 votes are needed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform. Despite the fact that in theory he has 57 Democrats out of the 100 seats in the

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Senate, actually, about 10 of them would not support such a reform because their constituents do not agree with it. Speculations have been made than fewer Democrats in both houses and some Republicans who previously had backed some aspects of the failed immigration reform have shifted their positions. Some Democrats have made it clear they will not support any bill that could be criticized as an “amnesty.” In general, debate in Congress has been timid, and many legislators have taken the opportunity to call on Obama to show leadership and send a proposal to both houses. It should be pointed out that immigration is not neces sarily a topic on which there is a party line. Things are not clear: sometimes the position of conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats is ambiguous. Attitudes on mi gration are more influenced by regional, class, or ethnic prej udices. For example, some Republican senators have come out in favor of a guest worker program, something employers need; and certain Democrats oppose establishing greater re strictions on family reunification, a verification system, and, of course, limiting eligibility for eventual legalization. Actually, during the 18 months of the Obama adminis tration, what we have seen is an “enforcement only” policy similar to that of his predecessor George W. Bush. One ex ample is that in answer to pressure from conservative mem bers of Congress in an election year —which causes political anxiety— Obama has ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to boost border security —500 to be sent to Arizona— and asked Congress for an additional US$600 million to support personnel and improve technology, turning the southern bor der into the most fortified, heavily monitored border ever dreamed of.9 In general, Congress has conducted a very timid debate on immigration. In the Senate, the Republicans have hard ened their positions and the Democrats have supported much more restrictive proposals than the 2006 McCain-Kennedy bill. For example, the Schumer Bill presented by Senator Charles E. Schumer (d-ny), greatly emphasizes the fortifi cation of the border and more technology for border surveil lance, supports job verification procedures, and argues for a restrictive legalization program. Little has been said about the need to increase the number of visas granted to tempo rary workers and permanent residents in accordance with the demands of the labor market. Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill), who recently opposed the Arizona law, was one of the congressmen in 2009 most committed to designing a new immigration bill. While he did say it was necessary to secure

the borders more, he also considered establishing a generous legalization program, incorporating initiatives like the Dream Act and AgJobs (Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act),10 canceling round-ups and deportations, and increasing punishment of employers. He thinks a reason able, fair formula should be created to determine the num ber of immigrants to be granted entry based on labor market demand and humanitarian needs.

Conclusions sb 1070, one of the most aggressive pieces of legislation passed on a state level, highlights Congress and the federal govern ment’s lack of leadership and interest in developing joint bills to partially or completely solve the failings of the immi gration system. This federal vacuum has been filled by local initiatives, revealing a lack of understanding of migrants’ con

1070 has created a hostile, divisive environment and a separatist climate, legitimizing xenophobia and abuse that will gradually exclude migrants from the society in which they live. sb

tribution —whether they be documented or not— to the U.S. economy and society. We understand that the mere fact of being present without legal immigration status is a civil vio lation under federal law, but that is no reason to turn a for eigner into a criminal. Rather, he or she is someone who, in most cases, has been hired by an employer, who, eager for cheap labor to keep the company competitive, is breaking the law, but is seldom punished or penalized. The passage of sb 1070 has created a hostile, divisive environment and a separatist climate, legitimizing xenopho bia and abuse. The perverse effect of this is that it will grad ually exclude migrants from the society in which they live and limit their ability to integrate themselves even into their own communities. This law also has a negative influence on other states. Politicians in Ohio, Texas, Missouri, and Utah, among others, have announced plans to introduce similar pieces of legislation, while others may wait to see whether the courts uphold the Arizona law or find it unconstitutional. 91

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It is a short-sighted law because it does not take into account the enormous power and influence of the Latino community in the United States in general, and in the border states in particular. The politics of immigration has a complex past and an unclear future. This is why the challenge civic organizations in the United States and the Mexican government face is enor mous: it includes both defending the human rights of our fellow Mexicans and persuading their counterparts through open, intensive lobbying that the current immigration law is inoperative and contradictory, and not appropriate for today’s situation. It does not offer options for the employment of foreigners that the economy constantly demands, which is why there are already about 11 million undocumented mi grants in the United States. Given the growing anti-immigrant sentiments that have polarized the environment for the discussion and passage of a possible comprehensive immigration reform, particularly re garding a generous, realistic amnesty, perhaps getting smaller pieces of immigration passed is an option. Issuing a larger number of temporary visas for workers currently employed without immigration documents in their labor markets would be an indispensable initiative, consistent with the demand for labor in the United States. sb 1070 has negatively affected bilateral relations with Mexico. This forced President Calderón to be demanding about the issue on his recent visit to Washington. In his speech before the U.S. Congress —he is the seventh Mexican first executive to make this kind of address; the first was Miguel Alemán in 1947— regarding the Arizona law, he underlined that criminalization is not the way to solve the phenomenon of undocumented migration and that the Mexican embassy and the Mexican consulates in Arizona will step up their ac tions in the areas of consular assistance, protection, and legal counseling. He correctly pointed out that joint responsibility, trust, and mutual respect should be the basis for addressing common challenges. Nevertheless, for three years, the govern ment has “de-migrationized” the bilateral agenda, making it about drug trafficking instead. We recognize that President Obama’s excellent speech about the need to approve a comprehensive immigration re form was indispensable after 18 months of indifference and that the lawsuit against sb 1070 was a courageous act by his administration in an atmosphere that is increasingly hostile to migrants. We hope he goes on to make it clear that states should not seek to adopt cruel measures like sb 1070 and 92

that he moves forward with an overhaul of the immigration laws. However, we also hope that these actions are not brought out just for election campaigns and will really lead to more committed measures being adopted and an immigration re form bill being drafted and formally sent to Congress for its discussion and final passage.

Notes 1

I wish to thank Érika Veloz and Jazmín Casas for their technical advice.

tate of Arizona House of Representatives, “House Bill 2162,” http:// S www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/ hb2162c.htm.

he Department of Homeland Security (dhs ) has signed more than T 70 such agreements, including with the state of Arizona and some of its municipalities. This program, while controversial, appears to be consti tutionally sound because it supplements —not supplants— federal authority based on a specific delegation. Doris Meissner and James W. Ziglar, “Why the U.S. Had to Challenge Arizona on Immigration,” The Washington Post, July 22, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072104559.html?hpid =opinionsbox1.

“ Hispanic Rights Group Urges Companies to Boycott Arizona,” Boston Globe, May 6, 2010. and “Boycotts Put Arizona’s Reputation on the Line,” Kristi Keck, cnn, May 8, 2010.

ew Hispanic Center, “Hispanics and Arizona’s New Immigration Law,” P April 29, 2010, http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/68.pdf.

etentions in Arizona rose by 351 percent between 1994 and 2000. Frosty D Wooldridge, “Five Myths about Illegal Immigration from US Government,” NewsWithViews.com, May 10, 2010.

epartment of Homeland Security, “Budget in Brief, fy 2010 and fy 2011,” D http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/ge_1170797368531.shtm.

or more information, see Mónica Verea, “Obama y la reforma migratoria: F promesas y acciones,” Jerjes Izcoatl Aguirre Ochoa and José Odón García García, eds., Communidades mexicanas en Estados Unidos: Diáspora, integra ción y desarrollo en México (Morelia, Michoacán: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Empresariales/Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás Hidalgo/El Colegio de Tlaxcala A.C., 2010).

arack Obama, “Remarks on Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” Amer B ican University School of International Service, Washington, D. C., The White House, July 1, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the -press-office/ remarks-president-comprehensive-immigration-reform.

hese troops will work on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance T support and will eventually be replaced by more border patrol and customs agents.

he Dream Act is a bill that would allow undocumented students who T arrived in the United States before the age of 16 to legalize their migratory status by fulfilling certain requirements. The AgJobs bill would grant “earned legalization” to undocumented temporary foreign agricultural laborers.

Human Rights and the Fetishization of sb 1070 Joshua Lott/REUTERS

Ariadna Estévez López*

rizona’s SB 1070, passed in April 2010, makes it a crime to not have documents of legal residence and not carry others to prove that one’s migratory status is in order. The legislation, also called the “Arizona law,” not only permits the detention of anyone who transports an un documented migrant, even if that person is a relative, but also allows the police to detain and require anyone they have a “rea sonable suspicion” is an “illegal” immigrant to produce his or her migratory documents. Clearly, criminalizing migration inhibits and even prohib its the enjoyment of different universal rights: specifically the right to not live in slavery or be subjected to forced labor; the right to health, to adequate housing, to a family life, to guar antee a minimum subsistence for oneself, to fair conditions of employment, to be a part of a union and other associations, to social security, to a name (in the case of little boys and girls), to education, to equal treatment to that of other nationals in a court of law, to due process if prosecuted, to not being de ported collectively, and to not being discriminated against. Because they are universal, enjoying these rights must not be conditioned to possessing legally recognized migratory sta

* Researcher at cisan.

tus. However, the growing tendency to criminalize migration with legal instruments like the Arizona law systematically vi olates them. In the more restricted sphere of the U.S. Constitu tion, the Arizona law also violates fundamental rights, which is why President Barack Obama brought legal suit against it last July 6. Only a few days before that, his Mexican counter part, Felipe Calderón, filed an amicus curiae brief backing the suit brought by civic organizations against the legislation. In its fierce opposition to sb 1070, the Mexican state, through the Con gress, also requested and received political backing from parliamentarians from Ecuador, Uruguay, Panama, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba, and Chile. 93

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However —and without denying for a moment the im portance and implications of this legislation— it should be said that it is a mistake to make the Arizona law the only focus for criticism and protests against the violation of migrants’ hu man rights. In Arizona and other states of the Union, the crimi nalization of migration and racism have propitiated the constant violation of Latino migrants’ human rights for a long time now, way beyond the scope of this law. Students of migration are concentrating on its unconstitutionality and on promoting its eventual repeal, but by doing that, they fall into a kind of legal fetishism that does not deal with the basic problem: a national crisis of migrants’ human rights violations. Lemaître distinguishes three types of legal fetishism in legal theory. First, he critiques formalism in legal interpreta tion. This type of fetishism consists of a merely formal, im placable interpretation of the law, without considering a social context or casuistical contingencies. The second kind is Marx ist legal theory. In old Soviet law, legal fetishism consisted of making an analogy between law and the commodity in Marx ist analysis. Marx criticized a commodity being seen as a good with intrinsic value instead of one with a superstructural val ue. Law, like the commodity, is not a neutral instrument, but has a function in class relations, which is that of maintaining and reproducing exploitation. Finally, Lemaître points to the legal fetishism that borrows a little from both positions and is blind to the tension between the law and its application, fo cusing more on legal rituals more than its efficacy.1 Focusing exclusively on the Arizona law brings us face to face with fetishism of the third kind, since there is emphasis on legal ritual (the approval and possible eventual repeal of sb 1070), which assigns the strategy of legally challenging it a greater effect than it can actually have. While sb 1070 could have an effect similar to that of California’s Proposition 187,2 focusing on that makes it impossible to deal with the grave panorama of migrants’ human rights violations throughout the United States. This is for three reasons:

1. the human rights violations that this law makes legally possible in Arizona had already been going on de facto for a long time; 2. the criminalization of undocumented migration is ad vancing nationwide, not only in Arizona; and 3. the existing generalized climate of racism systematically attacks migrants’ rights.

Human Rights Violations in Arizona beyond the Scope of sb 1070 The violations of migrants’ human rights in Arizona dates at least since 1999, when Operation Safeguard was launched to apply the same strategy of “prevention by dissuasion” used in the early 1990s in El Paso, Texas, with Operation Blockade/ Hold the Line, and in San Diego, California, with Operation Gatekeeper. This strategy consists of preventing undocu mented migration by dissuading prospective migrants with the presence of hundreds of border agents and the detention and search of any “suspected” migrants. Very often the people stopped and searched were legal residents and even U.S. cit izens of Latino descent. The strategy was so effective at those border crossings that the routes of undocumented migration moved to the Sonora desert, across the border from Arizona, making it the ideal place to implement Operation Safeguard. With this program, southern Arizona has become the most important crossing, where migrants die from dehydration, sunstroke, and heat stroke. From 1995 to 2002 alone, 1,600 deaths were registered along this stretch of border.3 This sparked a solidarity campaign that has in turn trig gered the criminalization of migrants’-rights defenders. For example, in 2005, volunteers Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss were accused of human smuggling after trying to transport a group of injured immigrants to the hospital. In 2008, Dan Millis, from the migrant aid humanitarian organization “No

The violations of migrants’ human rights in Arizona dates at least since 1999, when Operation Safeguard was launched to apply the same strategy of “prevention by dissuasion” used in the early 1990s in El Paso, Texas, with Operation Blockade/Hold the Line, and in San Diego, California, with Operation Gatekeeper.

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More Deaths,” was fined by the U.S. Fishing and Wildlife Service for leaving bottles of water near the paths used by immig rants. He refused to pay the US$175 fine arguing that humanitarian aid is not a crime. Even though this kind of repressive atmosphere to pre vent undocumented migrants from crossing the border is nothing new, direct criminalization of undocumented migra tion inside Arizona itself is more recent, but predates sb 1070. It began immediately after the federal migration reform bill was put on hold in 2006.4 hb 2779 was passed by the state Congress in 2006 and confirmed in 2008, authorizing admin istrative and criminal sentences for employers who hired undocumented immigrants, requiring the state attorney gen eral to notify immigration authorities of the presence of un documented workers, and broadening out the definition of identity theft. The Legal Arizona Workers Act requires em ployers to verify whether their employees are authorized to work in the United States using a federal data base called e-Verify. It should be mentioned that a similar reform was carried out in 2007 in Oklahoma mandating state employers to use the Basic Pilot electronic system, whose application is optional federally. Simultaneously, in the light of this anti-immigrant climate, in 2006, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard confiscat ed remittances of more than US$500 being sent to Mexico through Western Union. According to Goddard, the entire amount he confiscated (US$14 million) was going to be used to finance human smuggling. In the health care field, in Phoe nix, St. Joseph’s Hospital repatriates 96 migrants a year; the hospital justifies itself legally arguing the irregular migratory status of its patients.5 Civil rights organizations have also un covered 16 hate groups acting with impunity, two of them expressly anti-immigrant: United for a Sovereign America-Amer ican Patriots, in Phoenix, and the American Border Patrol, in Sierra Vista. Along these same lines, in 2009, a federal court found in favor of rancher Roger Barnett who detained at gunpoint 16 Mexicans who were entering the United States without documents. The court denied that this was a violation of the Mexicans’ civil rights, although it did find that the defen dant should pay six of the immigrants US$78,000 in dam ages for suffering and emotional distress. sb 1070 was passed in this kind of legal panorama and atmosphere of human rights violations. Nevertheless, the problem did not stop there: since May 2010, ethnic studies have been banned if they focus on the structural position of systematically and historically discriminated-against racial

In Arizona and other states, criminalization of migration and racism have fostered the constant violation of Latino migrants’ human rights for a long time now, way beyond the scope of this law.

groups, like Hispanics, who make up almost 30 percent of the state’s total population. This is a clear affront to MexicanAmericans’ cultural rights, but has remained in the shadows because of the predominance of sb 1070.

The Criminalization of Migration beyond Arizona Since 2006 when the federal reform bill did not pass, each of the 50 states of the Union has focused on making local reform proposals. According to a 2008 report by the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy and the Migration Policy Institute, in 2007, a total of 1,059 migration reform bills were presented, but only 167 were voted into law.6 The writ ers of the report underline that among the bills passed, a greater proportion of the laws actually extend migrants’ hu man rights (19 percent of the 313 bills of this kind) rather than limit them (11 percent of 263 proposed bills). However, if the ones that restrict human rights are added to those deal ing with enforcing the law (11 percent of 263) and those that regulate employment (10 percent of 237), the percentage of bills approved that criminalize migration is greater than that of those that promote human rights (40 percent versus 19 percent). This is because the bills dealing with enforcing the law and employment are just as restrictive as those that openly limit rights. The bills dealing with enforcing the law establish the com petencies of enforcing immigration law at a local or state lev el, reform the criminal justice system, or create new offenses related to migration. These kinds of bills deal with issues like requiring proof of migratory status to get any kind of of ficial identification; increasing state police or state’s attor neys’ powers to detain migrants; excluding offenders without legal migratory status from the benefit of fines as sentences; and requiring jail staff to demand that detainees held for administrative offenses prove their migratory status. These 95

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are actually very damaging, as proved by Arizona’s law 2779 and Oklahoma’s law, which categorizes transporting, giving refuge to, hiding, and hiring undocumented migrants as a se rious crime, and punishes anyone who aids an undocumented migrant with up to a year in jail or a US$1,000 fine. It also re quires landlords to verify the migratory status of anyone who wants to rent from them. The measures that directly restrict migrants’ rights con dition access to public benefits, like demanding that a person show citizenship in order to get a driver’s license, and exclude from work-compensation programs all persons who cannot prove their legal presence in the country. The states that approved the most restrictive reforms are the ones that are new desti nations for migrants: South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Measures affecting access to employment regulate un documented migrants’ income and treatment on the job, as well as their relationship to federal employment supervision programs vis-à-vis migration. This includes positive measures, like labor rights protection, but that also criminalize immi grants, like the measures that sanction employers who hire people without documents; those that grant winning bids for public works only to employers who can prove they have not hired unauthorized workers; and also when professional or commercial licenses are only awarded to those who can show their migratory status is regular. By contrast, the bills that broaden out migrants’ rights include actions like eliminating the citizenship requirement for jobs with the police and fire departments and as teachers, as well as for migrants’ children’s access to public benefits; undocumented students access to education; making it giving crime to blackmail immigrants (for example, to threaten them with calling in immigration or other kinds of authorities in charge of enforcing the law); and writing into the law more offenses related to slavery and human smuggling or the de struction of migratory documents. The states that approved

The latest fbi figures say 51.3 percent of hate crimes are motivated by race. Though most are perpetrated against African-Americans, from 2003 to 2007 attacks against Latinos increased 40 percent.

more bills promoting migrants’ rights are those that have a long immigration tradition like California, New York, Illinois, and Texas.7

Racism and Hate Crimes in the United States In addition to the criminalization of migration in Arizona and different states of the Union, the existing climate of rac ism and discrimination systematically violates migrants’ human rights. These violations often go unpunished because the vic tims do not make a complaint for fear of being deported or jailed. This in itself is a violation of the right to receive the pro tection of the state from hate crimes. According to the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation (fbi) figures, 51.3 percent of hate crimes are motivated by race. Although the majority of them are committed against African-Americans (72.6 percent), from 2003 to 2007 attacks against Latinos increased every year: 426 attacks affected 595 victims in 2003; 475 attacks affected 646 people in 2004; 522 attacks against 722 persons in 2005; 576 attacks affect ed 819 victims in 2006; and 595 attacks against 830 per sons in 2007.8 The total increase for this time period is 40 percent. This rise has coincided with the discussion about immigration reform and the economic crisis, which in turn has been marked by the racist language of anti-immigrant groups lobbying for repressive laws against foreigners who enter the country without papers. These groups have also grown in number: from 2000 to 2008, the count rose from 602 to 926, a 54-percent jump. Although many of these groups openly promote white supremacy, many have incorporated the antiimmigrant discourse into their ideology.9 Despite the gravity of the problem these figures indicate, the phenomenon may be much more serious because the fig ures are enormously biased. fbi statistics are developed based on local police reports, and the last poll on this topic, in 2007, indicated that only 15 percent of them report hate crimes, and some report only a single case. The Local Law Enforce ment Hate Crime Prevention Act, which has both passed and been voted down in both the upper and lower houses of Con gress several times since 1999, would allow for greater co ordination among federal, state, and local authorities to fill in these gaps and to make it possible for some particularly grave cases to be channeled to federal jurisdiction. Howev er, the law cannot revert one of the main problems, which is undocumented migrants’ fear of making a complaint: they

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In 2007, 1,059 migration reform bills were presented nationwide, but only 167 were voted into law. Forty percent criminalize migration, while only 19 percent protect migrants’ human rights.

are rightly afraid that this could be the basis for their eventual deportation. And the cases themselves illustrate the problem. In 2007, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, several anti-immi grant groups tried to burn down a day-laborer’s work center; in Woodbridge and Culpepper, Virginia, migrants are subject to provocations like being photographed and insulted from moving automobiles or detained by individuals pretending to be police. In December 2007, Mexican citizen Miguel Ba rrón Martínez was beaten to death when he tried to defend his nephew and other persons: he was attacked by two U.S. citizens in his workplace. He had been living in Roger City, Arkansas for 14 years. Also in December 2007, in San Fran cisco, California, two men shot two Maya youths, José Chel Cámara and Javier Nah Carrillo, originally from Akil, Yuca tán, killing them instantly. Javier had been in the United States for three years and his childhood friend, José Chel,

just a month. They both worked in a restaurant, which they had just left to go to the store where they were murdered. In 2008, 37-year-old Ecuadoran Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death by a white teenager in Patchogue, New York, as he and a friend walked to an acquaintance’s house. The teenager who insulted and taunted them before stabbing Lucero had a record of prior violence against Latinos and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 2008, brothers Oswaldo and Romel Sucuzhana, from Ecuador, were attacked by a group of youths who shouted racist slogans at them as they walked home after leaving a night club. Oswaldo suffered grave injuries to his head and Romel escaped with a few cuts on the hand after being attacked with a glass bottle wielded by a pair of AfricanAmerican youths, according to witnesses. The attackers were caught and are now facing charges that could carry a sentence of up to 78 years in jail.

Notes 1

J . Lemaître, “Legal Fetishism at Home and Abroad,” Unbound Harvard Journal of the Legal Left no. 3 (2007), pp. 6-18.

I n California, Proposition 187, which passed but was revoked by a federal court in 1994, attempted to ban undocumented migrants’ access to public education and free medical services (except in emergencies) in order to dis suade them from entering the United States. It also simplified the appeals process in deportation cases and gave the Border Patrol and immigration officers more elements for investigating about fraudulent documents, em ployers, and people who remained in the country once their visas ran out. The greatest impact of this failed proposition was its influence federally, since it was the inspiration for the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act which took away undocumented immi grants’ access to public social services and increased financial and human resources for border surveillance. See Mónica Verea, Migración temporal en América del Norte. Propuestas y respuestas (Mexico City: cisan, 2003).

3 4

Ibid. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (cira, S. 2611), introduced by Senator Arlen Specter, proposed stepping up security all along the border with Mexico and granting amnesty to the 7 million undocumented migrants. It also included the creation of a “blue visa” or H-2C, which would have made it possible to bring in temporary guest workers for up to six years, at the end of which the worker would have to return to his/

her country for at least one year. It also proposed increasing the annual number of H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000, with a 20 percent increase yearly. 5

ince the 1996 federal immigration reform, neither undocumented nor S recently arrived documented migrants have a right to government social services. However, since the law stipulates that hospitals cannot deny emergency health care or abandon an injured person in the street, they are obliged to offer first aid. If the cases are very serious, the hospitals must either take charge of their care or refer them to private institutions. When this happens and the hospital does not want to be held responsible, the patients are repatriated.

. Laglagaron, C. Rodríguez, A. Silver, and S. Thanasombat, Regulating L Migration at the State Level: Highlights from the Database of 2007 State Immigration Legislation and Methodology (Washington, D.C.: National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy/Migration Policy Institute, 2008).

Ibid.

“ 2008 Hate Crime Statistics,” http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/index.html. [Editor’s Note.]

“ Confronting the New Faces of Hate: Hate Crimes in America,” Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (lccref), Washington, D.C. (2009), http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/lccref_hate crimes_report.pdf.

Arizona’s New Anti-immigrant Law and Federal Immigration Reform Joshua Lott/REUTERS

Doris Marie Provine*

Arizona‘s Governor Jan Brewer with the press after the sb 1070 District Court hearing in Phoenix.

rizona’s recent legislation creating several immigra tion-related offenses occurs against the backdrop of long-standing U.S. ambivalence about immigration, particularly in times of economic stress. As in the past, con cerns about immigrants “stealing” U.S. jobs and creating a drain on public resources are mixing with fears that the es sential character of the republic will change under the pres sure of too much immigration. Such fears of inassimilable “others” are a reminder that race, despite its lack of empiri cal basis, continues to play a role in national identity, and therefore in debates about who belongs. Racial fears have long underlain the sense of crisis and occasional violence that large-scale immigration provokes. What is new about the cur rent wave of anti-immigrant anxiety is the widespread use * Professor, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University.

of local legislation to express anger at immigrants without legal status and a desire for more restrictive policy at the na tional level. The trend appears to be gathering steam. Politi cians in nearly 20 states have expressed interest in adopting a version of Arizona’s law. sb 1070 creates several new misdemeanors, including working or seeking work without legal status and transport ing an immigrant without legal status while engaged in other criminal activity. During any stop, police must ask about im migration status (“when practicable”) if their suspicions are aroused. Racial profiling is prohibited, but there is no statu tory guidance as to what constitutes reasonable suspicion of illegal status and no standardized training for police officers. Even before the law was scheduled to take effect, there were substantial differences in interpretation among police agen cies over how to handle cases involving juveniles and asylum

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seekers and over whose status must be checked. Any law-enforce ment agency that resists prioritizing immigration enforcement in its day-to-day work is liable to a citizen-initiated lawsuit for damages. Arizona’s new law has been widely and rightly condemned for stirring racial antagonisms and creating an impossible job for local police. Seven lawsuits, including one by the federal government, have been filed to block its enforcement on con stitutional grounds. Arizona’s law may not survive these legal challenges, but that does not appear to matter to the law’s de fenders, who dismiss the lawsuits as “pure politics.” They ap pear undeterred by a federal judge’s decision to temporarily block enforcement of key provisions of the law, including the requirement that police inquire about immigration status. One can assume that the goals of the law’s creators extend beyond transforming law enforcement in Arizona to chang ing the national dialogue about the control of illegal immigra tion. The Arizona law makes “attrition through enforcement” the basis of its policy. The buzz created by the law helps to publicize this idea, while at the same time pushing proposals for eventual citizenship to the background. The adoption of sb 1070 should not come as a surprise to observers of Arizona’s escalating campaign against im migrants without legal status and the federal government’s shifting stance toward enforcement of its immigration laws. Over the past 15 years, the federal government has progres sively loosened its hold on immigration enforcement without overseeing the process effectively. It has created a variety of programs to partner with local police. The federal govern ment’s own enforcement efforts have included some legally indefensible actions against immigrants. Most significantly, the federal approach has become harsher. The list of crimes that result in deportation of legal immigrants has grown lon ger; prosecutions for immigration offenses are at an all-time high, and so is the use of detention. On the border, Operation Streamline facilitates the charging and criminal conviction of migrants caught in the act of entering the United States ille gally. From this perspective, Arizona has simply accepted the federal government’s implicit invitation to come down hard on immigrants without legal status, while taking the approach a few steps further. Many reasons lie behind Arizona’s decision to adopt a hard-line stand toward illegal immigration. They include an ugly and obvious racism that regularly finds expression in blogs and demonstrations, but also a sense of injury at the federal government’s purported indifference toward the costs

that Arizona has borne as a border state. The flow of mi grants into and across Arizona has increased dramatically in the past decade as easier routes through urban areas in other states have been cut off by federal initiatives like Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Hold the Line. Arizona has a large population of retired persons who have come from elsewhere in the United States, which contributes to a weak sense of history and place and a high potential for anxiety about nonEnglish speaking foreigners. Enormous differences in wealth and education also separate voters from immigrants without legal status. Plus, there are practical political considerations. The state has an estimated 500,000 immigrants without le gal status in a population of approximately 6.5 million peo ple. New immigrant voters could challenge the conservative Republican domination of the state. A campaign that targets vulnerable people who cannot vote also helpfully diverts at tention from other pressing problems in the state, while at the same time positioning its leaders as willing to stand up

What is new about the current wave of anti-immigrant anxiety is the widespread use of local legislation to express anger at undocumented immigrants and a desire for more restrictive national policies.

to the federal government, something that always plays well in Arizona. The population that is the target of sb 1070 is largely Mex ican. Most either neglected or were unable to obtain permis sion to migrate legally when they came to Arizona for jobs in agriculture, construction, restaurants, hotels, and factories. Others who will be affected by the law include U.S. citizens: for example, children born here of parents who lack legal status, and children who were brought to Arizona at a young age, the so-called 1.5 generation. This population of mixed legal status is visible and visibly disliked by some Arizonans, who nevertheless rely on them for low-wage services. These are not the only immigrants without legal status in the state. Arizona also attracts Canadians and some Europeans who violate the terms of their stays by obtaining jobs or moving in. These “non-visible” migrants, however, do not appear to be a concern of either Arizona lawmakers or the general public. 99

Voices of Mexico • 88

Plenary Power and the Devolution Of Enforcement Authority The power to set immigration policy rests firmly at the na tional level in the United States, as it does in every modern nation. At the same time, the constitutional system also pro tects local authority from federal intrusion in many matters, including policing. This division of authority has not pre vented federal immigration authorities from working with local police on an ad hoc and informal basis when the occa sion demands. Local police have also sometimes initiated contacts with federal immigration authorities to seek depor tation of criminal migrants, a strategy that was popular in the Prohibition era as a way of dealing with foreign-born gang sters. Not until 1996, however, did Congress formally rec ognize this relationship, for the first time offering a specific opportunity for local police to partner with federal authori ties to enforce immigration law. In 1996, Congress adopted two statutes with the idea that local police could be a “force multiplier” in the effort to root out criminal migrants from the nation’s interior. The con stitutional separation of powers meant that all that could be offered was an invitation to participate: the federal govern ment cannot require local police to enforce its laws. The Ille gal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (iirira) authorized training of local and state police to en force federal immigration laws. The program that resulted and the agreements reached have become known informally as “287g,” a reference to the location of the law in the Immi gration and Nationality Act. The second 1996 law, the AntiTerrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify that local police have the authority to arrest previously deported non-citizen felons. At the operational level, federal immigration officers are increasingly engaged with local police. A variety of part nering programs are now available under an umbrella program entitled ice access (Agreements of Cooperation in Com munities to Enhance Safety and Security). One of the most far-reaching is Secure Communities, designed to link all lo cal jails in the nation with ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) so that anyone booked in a U.S. jail can be checked for immigration status. Federal devolution of enforcement authority to the local level has occurred in tandem with a stalemate in federal im migration reform. The result, exacerbated by the sour eco nomic climate, has been the development of a perfect storm 100

The goals of the law’s creators presumably extend beyond transforming law enforcement in Arizona to changing the national dialogue about illegal immigration control.

of controversy across the nation about immigration enforce ment. Beginning in 2005, states and municipalities began to respond to rising levels of illegal immigration with their own bills and resolutions that attempt to make it more difficult for immigrants without legal status to live in their jurisdictions. Most tracked areas of traditional state authority. Statutes making English the state’s official language and restricting drivers’ licenses to citizens and legal permanent residents, for example, have been favorite topics for legislation. But a few states and localities have pushed these limits, raising the ques tion of how far a state or city may go before encroaching on the federal government’s claim of absolute power to deter mine who may remain in the country.

Arizona’s Law Arizona began its legal assault on its immigrants without le gal status in 1988 with a ballot initiative to adopt English as the state’s official language. That law was struck down by the state Supreme Court as overly broad, but legislative leaders and anti-immigrant activists were undeterred. In 2004 vot ers approved restrictions on access to social services by res idents without legal status and imposed stricter identification requirements to prevent non-citizen voting. A 2006 citizen’s initiative was successful in changing the state Constitution to make English the state’s official language. Another initiative cut off access to punitive damages for immigrants without legal status who seek redress in the state’s courts. The same year the state made people without legal status ineligible for state-sponsored English classes and other benefits, including in-state tuition and financial aid for the colleges and univer sities in the state. The law affected nearly 5,000 high school graduates when it took effect, and forced those already en rolled to pay much higher tuition to finish their education. All of these propositions passed easily, some by a margin of nearly three to one.1

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The power to set immigration policy rests firmly at the national level in the U.S., as in every modern nation. But federal immigration authorities work with local police on an ad hoc and informal basis when needed.

The state has also experimented with criminal sanctions. In 2006 the Arizona legislature adopted an anti-smuggling law that the prosecuting attorney interpreted to apply to the immigrants who paid for these services. Under this interpre tation of the law, persons smuggled into Arizona are treated as co-conspirators, facing the same criminal sentences as the smugglers. In 2007 the legislature limited the availabil ity of bail for immigrants without legal status who are accused of serious crimes. Arizona gained national attention in Janu ary 2008 with a law that suspends or revokes the business licenses of employers who knowingly hire workers without legal status. That law is currently under review by the United States Supreme Court. All of these earlier efforts to discourage immigrants with out legal status from moving into Arizona or remaining in residence laid a kind of ideological groundwork for sb 1070, somewhat misleadingly entitled Support Our Law Enforce ment and Safe Neighborhoods Act. In fact, the law ties the hands of police departments and cities that do not want to become involved in enforcing federal immigration law be cause it interferes with other priorities, such as community safety. A concept that has gained much favor with police departments across the nation is community policing, which seeks to cultivate the trust of all residents within an area in order to promote law-abiding behavior and crime reporting.2 Some Arizona departments and municipalities are also wor ried about the costs involved in detaining, housing, and trans porting immigrants. Critics of the law have focused mostly on the potential for racial profiling. Although state leaders insist that racial profiling is prohibited in the legislation and in Arizona law generally, it is far from clear that it will not occur. Racial pro filing is hard to detect except with difficult-to-gather statis tical evidence of actual stops and interrogations. There is also the issue of consent. Under sb 1070, police officers are allowed and even encouraged to ask questions, not just in an arrest situation, but any time their curiosity is aroused by suspicious

circumstances. Such questioning is likely to be directed at persons who, because of skin color, dress, or language, appear to be immigrants; the questions police ask will likely focus on immigration status, given Arizona’s priorities. The individual has the option of refusing to communicate, but many people, especially immigrants, do not know that, or fear retaliation for not cooperating. Another issue is stops based on the pretext of minor driving violations or other offenses. The Arizona law sweeps as broadly as possible to approve immigration ques tioning even in cases involving local ordinance violations. This makes people subject to police investigation for having grass that has grown too long, or for a loud party. Arizona is already feeling the impact of its new law. The prospect of implementation has provoked an outflow of Mex ican and Central American immigrants from the state. They are leaving behind vacant apartments and empty seats in public schools. Most are fleeing to other states, but some are returning to their countries of origin. A study released by the Univer sity of Arizona estimates a drop of at least US$29 billion in annual output if all non-citizens were removed from the state’s workforce.3 The law has also provoked political protests. Some professional organizations and city governments have pledged to boycott the state until the law is withdrawn. Mexico has expressed its dismay at Arizona’s law and has refused to con duct much of its diplomatic business in the state. The loss of revenue from such actions has been estimated at US$90 million thus far. There are also political impacts as immi grant-rights organizations find new support in their effort to register immigrant voters who have legal status, which may eventually affect the state’s voting patterns.

Understanding Support for sb 1070 Backers of the law have nevertheless gained at least shortterm political support in this process. When she signed the legislation, Governor Jan Brewer received a significant boost in her approval ratings, enough to put her ahead of her rivals for the Republican nomination for governor. The federal gov ernment’s success in winning a preliminary injunction against enforcement of key provisions of sb 1070 and President Oba ma’s statements against the law have only boosted her po litical support more. The local context includes many other signs of hostility toward the presence of these immigrants. Huge, sprawling Maricopa County, with over half of the state’s population, has repeatedly chosen Joseph Arpaio as its sher 101

Voices of Mexico • 88

Federal devolution of enforcement authority to the local level has occurred in tandem with a stalemate in federal immigration reform. The result has been a perfect storm of controversy across the nation about immigration enforcement.

iff. Since 2005, when Sheriff Arpaio realized that combating illegal immigration could be a winning platform, he has gained notoriety for the priority he puts on detecting and removing immigrants without legal status. Many political leaders are also clear in their desire to re move these residents. The undisputed leader of this group, state Senator Russell Pearce, has been emboldened by his victory in sponsoring sb 1070. Now he is working on legisla tion to deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona of immigrants without legal status, a move that has resulted in a call for national hearings on this idea. There are, of course, dissenting voices, particularly among Latino politicians, po litical activists, and liberal Democrats. But in an election year, staking out a stand that falls into a reasonable middle ground is difficult. The Arizona public —or at least its most vocal elements— is clearly aroused.

on implementation are premature in this context. But it is also true that the powerful concept of civil rights remains too linked to citizenship to be easily transportable to the field of immigration. Immigration policy in the United States is fundamentally contractual: the government sets up require ments that the prospective immigrant must follow. And on the civil rights side, while the concept has expanded beyond its original focus on the legalized subordination of African Americans, that historical legacy remains strong. The basis on which civil rights stands is citizenship in the United States, not the human condition or other universal ethos. Nevertheless, the situation in Arizona is eerily reminis cent of the on-going effort to achieve racial equality in the United States. The connection is not just with the potential that police will engage in racial profiling and stops on the pretext of skin color. The connection also lies in state lead ers’ decision to create a law like sb 1070, which disregards the many contributions that immigrants without legal status and mixed families have made in Arizona. sb 1070 treats these res idents as if they are undeserving of respect and consider ation, and unconnected to the state’s economy, cultural life, and neighborhood vitality. The harsh policy of “attrition through enforcement” would be indefensible and unpopu lar if Arizona’s immigrants were regarded as neighbors and friends. It is this aversion to inclusion and disregard for those who appear different that most clearly defines contempo rary racism in the United States.

Conclusion sb 1070 illustrates how the complex compromise of federal

ism that characterizes the U.S. system of government works in a situation of high political anxiety. The system is flexible enough to permit localities to have a meaningful political voice, even in an area traditionally reserved to the federal government. With the warm support of national organiza tions seeking stronger immigration controls, Arizona has shown how a state can make its voice heard. By adopting sb 1070 the state was finally able to provoke a definitive response from the federal government concerning its policies on illegal im migration. The government’s brief in opposition to sb 1070 entirely bypassed the issue of an individual’s right to be free of un warranted stops and intrusive questioning based on skin color, a basic civil rights guarantee. This may be an issue of timing: the government’s objective in its initial brief was a preliminary injunction to block enforcement. Issues based 102

Notes

or an overview of Arizona ballot propositions, their contents, and their F outcomes, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arizona_Ballot_Prop ositions. For the complete text of Proposition 300, the ballot proposition that required citizenship for in-state tuition and various other social services, see http://www.azsos.gov/election/2006/info/PubPamphlet/english/Prop300 .htm.

cott Decker, Paul G. Lewis, Doris Marie Provine, and Monica W. Varsanyi, S “On the frontier of local law enforcement: Local police and federal immi gration law,” Immigration, Crime, and Justice, edited by W. F. McDonald (Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing, 2009), pp. 263-278.

J udith Gans, “Immigrants in Arizona: Fiscal and Economic Impacts” (Tuc son, Arizona: Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Ari zona, 2007), http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/immigration/.

The United States v. Arizona

The Power Struggle Over Setting Immigration Enforcement Priorities

Joshua Lott/REUTERS

Evelyn Cruz*

n April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Brewer signed into law state senate bill 1070 (sb 1070). In signing the bill, the governor declared that Arizona could no longer stand idly by while the federal government failed to pro tect Arizona from the criminal acts caused by undocumented migrants in the state.1 In the weeks leading up to the bill’s passage, scores of protestors had been urging the legislature not to enact the statute. The protestors feared that the law would result in a cascade of anti-Latino fervor in the state. When signed, the federal government expressed mild concern about the stat ute’s ramifications and did not immediately act, to the dis may of civil rights activists. However, a few weeks before the bill was to go into effect, the federal government filed a lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality, but not raising concerns over racial profiling. In response to criticisms about the federal government’s failure to raise objections to the statute based on civil rights, Attorney General Holder indi cated that if the statute does go into effect, the federal gov ernment will monitor closely and file suit if any civil rights violations occur.

* Clinical law professor and director of the Immigration Clinic at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law.

Anti-immigrant groups saw Arizona’s actions as a model and began courting politicians across the country to encour age them to pass copycat legislation. On the other side, La tino leaders began encouraging a boycott of Arizona. Both sides can claim some victories. Politicians in over 15 states have indicated interest in enacting sb 1070 copycat statutes, 103

Voices of Mexico • 88

and at least four states have already proposed legislation to do so.2 In contrast, a number of cities have terminated their business dealings with Arizona, and the state’s conference industry is facing a 50-75 percent drop in new bookings.3 High emotions have given way to a multiplicity of lawsuits, seven at last count, filed to prevent the statute from going into effect and to declare it unconstitutional. The fate of the law suits is pending as I write this; however, at the core of the grievance are fears that the law is difficult to enforce without prejudicing Arizona’s Latino residents, and concerns that the state is engaging in regulating a field reserved for federal action. Stepping back from the spectacle that surrounds sb 1070, it is not difficult to see that Arizona is trying to straddle be tween state and federal fields of regulatory power and be tween state and federal priorities, while also attempting to redefine both relationships. The state attempts to accomplish this first by claiming that what it is doing fits squarely within its state rights, and second by arguing that its statute helps the federal government achieve what should be a common goal: the removal of undocumented migrants.4 But before shed ding light on constitutional tensions created by the statute, we must strip away the rhetoric and look at sb 1070’s actual statutory language.

In addition to creating new criminal statutes targeting undocumented persons present in Arizona, sb 1070 specified a number of activities that law enforcement must undertake to identify, arrest, and remove undocumented migrants found in the state of Arizona. Namely,

The Nuts and Bolts of sb 1070 We must understand that sb 1070 is not one law, but rather a series of laws joined together by the common goal of cre ating a hostile environment for undocumented migrants in the state of Arizona. Each of the different provisions must with stand constitutional scrutiny independently, and it is possi ble that some parts of sb 1070 will survive and others fail as the lawsuits wind their way through the U.S. legal process. The bill creates several new state crimes designed to pun ish individuals without immigration status by making it:

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• Illegal for a non-citizen not authorized to work under federal law to seek or be employed in the state. Arizo na Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) § 13-2928(C). • Illegal to hire or be hired at a public place, if in the pro cess of the transaction traffic is blocked or impeded. A.R.S. § 13-2928 (A) and (B). • Unlawful for a person who is in violation of a criminal offence to transport, move, conceal, harbor, or shield an undocumented non-citizen in order to further the

illegal presence of the non-citizen; or to encourage a non-citizen to come to Arizona knowing that it will be in violation of law. A.R.S. § 13-2929(A) • Illegal for any non-citizen in the United States to fail to register or carry a federal immigration document that has been issued to the person under 1304(e) or 1306(a) [The Alien Registration Act of 1940]. A.R.S. § 13-1509(A) (F). But note that, “This section does not apply to a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States.”

• When lawfully stopping, detaining, or arresting a person that the police have reasonable suspicion is undocu mented, the police must, when practicable, make reason able efforts to determine the person’s immigration status, except when it would interfere with an investigation. When a person is stopped or detained, presentation of an Arizona driver’s license or another specified form of iden tification may be sufficient to show legal status or citi zenship. A.R.S. § 11-1051(B). • When a person is arrested, their immigration status must be determined before they are released by check ing with the federal government. A.R.S. § 11-1051(B). • When a non-citizen who is unlawfully present is dis charged after conviction of an offense, federal author ities must be notified. A.R.S. § 11-1051(C). • Police may make a warrantless arrest for any offense that makes the arrestee removable from the United States. A.R.S. § 13-3883(A)(5). • Law enforcement agencies must not establish “sanc tuary cities.” A.R.S. §11-1051(A).

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that states may enact statutes with an incidental effect on federal immigration regulation if they are tailored to combat a local problem.

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Arizona claims that what it is doing fits squarely within its state rights, and argues that sb 1070 helps the federal government achieve what should be a common goal: the removal of undocumented migrants.

The State’s Attempt to Exploit a Grey Area in Constitutional Law State Rights Arizona’s best argument in defense of sb 1070 is that the state is engaging in legislative actions reserved to the states through the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “ The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor pro hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respec tively, or to the people.”5 The U.S. Supreme Court has held that states may enact statutes that have an incidental effect on federal regulation of immigration if the statute is focused directly upon and tailored to combat a local problem6 or if the subject matter of the law in question is an area traditionally occupied by states and Congress has not clearly manifested its intention to preempt the regulation in question.7 Arizona’s statute was drafted by Kris W. Kobach who has authored a series of articles promoting the theory that states can operate within the confines of the Tenth Amendment by simply criminalizing particular conduct by undocument ed migrants in a way that mirrors federal law, thereby acting under the state’s undisputed right to address crime and avoid ing federal preemption.8 sb 1070 attempts to bring Kobach’s vision to fruition by creating state criminal statutes that punish undocumented aliens who seek employment and/or who fail to register un der federal law. For the argument to prevail, however, Arizona will need to convince the courts that sb 1070 is addressing public safe ty and employment, two traditional state areas of regulation. The governor and legislature laid the foundation for the public safety argument by linking the need for sb 1070 with the need to address the allegedly high incidence of crimes by undocumented migrants in the state and the downward pressure on wages created by the availability of undocument

ed workers.9 However, sb 1070 does not address a problem unique to Arizona nor does it do so in an insular fashion. Arizona may be a border state and it may be dispropor tionally affected by illegal crossings into the U.S.; however, illegal immigration is a national concern, not a localized prob lem unique to Arizona. There are over 12 million individuals without immigration status living in the United States, roughly five percent of them in Arizona. Arizona’s crime statistics and unemployment are actually lower than the national average. Although localized violence in Mexico near the border has increased, the state does not face similar violence.10 Moreover, Arizona may be resolving its own purported illegal immigra tion problem by forcing it onto other states. News reports indicate that undocumented individuals are not returning to their country of nationality, but rather moving to other states with already higher percentages of undocumented migrants, like New Mexico, Nevada, and California. Also, sb 1070 requires Arizona’s police officers to detain and transfer undocumented migrants to federal authorities. In order for sb 1070’s law enforcement mandate to work, the federal government would need to be a willing participant in determining the immigration status of those arrested, and in detaining undocumented individuals caught by Arizona law enforcement officers. Although the federal government has not refused outright to participate in the enforcement of sb 1070, it has raised concerns about its ability to effectively meet its enforcement obligations to other states while submitting to the multiplicity of requests it anticipates receiving from Ari zona law enforcement agencies attempting to transfer un documented aliens from state to federal custody. The effects of sb 1070 on other states and the federal government are too numerous for Arizona to be able to argue that the law is narrow and only regulating local activity. While Arizona may believe that sb 1070 presents the best solution to address illegal immigration, the policy decision to enact laws with such sweeping national effects cannot come from unilateral state action. 105

Voices of Mexico • 88

Concurrent Power Arizona’s legislators and the governor have also purported that sb 1070 mimics federal immigration statutes and there fore both can coexist without causing externalities.11 However, the actual language of sb 1070 belies this attempt at several points. Some of the new crimes carry different penalties (smuggling) or means rea (registration). Some do not have a fed eral counterpart. The worst offender is the law criminalizing the act of non-citizens not authorized to work under federal law to seek or be employed in the state.12 Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-2928(c) has no parallel in the Immigration and Nationality Act (ina). In 1986, Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act (irca), implementing a complex and extensive national system for employers to verify the ability of an employee to work le gally in the United States. Congress consciously chose to punish the employer for hiring an undocumented migrant, not the employee.13 The federal law subjects undocument ed workers to removal if arrested by ice, and to prosecution, but only if the individual used fake id or documents belong ing to someone else in the attempt to obtain employment. This mistake may prove critical to Arizona. The Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot enact laws that “stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purpose and objectives of Congress.”14 In its lawsuit, the federal government complains that Arizona’s emphasis on prosecuting employees restructures the government’s immi gration enforcement method adversely to Congress’s carefully deliberated design. If the court agrees that the two laws di verge in intent, the Arizona provision will be struck down. However, the possibility that the crime of “seeking em ployment when not federally authorized to do so” may prove unconstitutional does not terminate the possibility that other sections touching on employment of undocumented migrants will survive. To illustrate, another of sb 1070’s provisions makes it a crime to block traffic in order to hire a worker. Past fed

eral cases have held that controlling the movement of vehi cles and traffic solely within state lines is a traditional state action and therefore constitutional.15

Challenging Traditional State and Federal Roles Arizona’s Governor Brewer often defends sb 1070 by claim ing that Arizona is only doing what the federal government has failed or refused to do.16 The phrase is politically advan tageous. It allows Republicans to present the federal govern ment, currently controlled by the Democrats, as ineffective and lacking common sense for failing to embrace Arizona’s offer to assist in controlling illegal immigration. The message is working in Arizona. The governor, who is running for reelec tion, is using sb 1070 to propel her campaign. Republican candidates in other states have taken notice and have used promises of enacting sb 1070 copycat legislation to enhance their own reelection hopes. Although it may be a popular battle cry in a state that sees the Beltway as disconnected and aloof to the needs of Arizona, it does not hold up under constitutional scrutiny. The U.S. Constitution states, This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.17

States enjoy concurrent sovereignty with the federal gov ernment, subject to the Supremacy clause.18 The Supreme Court has held that “for local interests the several States of the Union exist, but for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nationals, we are but one people, one nation, one power.”19

Arizona’s best argument in defense of sb 1070 is that it is engaging in legislative actions reserved to the states through the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States.”

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Arizona may be a border state and it may be disproportionally affected by illegal crossings into the U.S., but illegal immigration is a national concern, not a problem unique to Arizona.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Depart ment of Justice argue that Arizona’s claim that the federal government is not doing its job rests on a faulty assumption as to what constitutes the federal government’s immigration enforcement job. They argue that Arizona fails to recognize the complex nature of immigration enforcement and the need for the federal government to control and balance a number of variables in deciding how to use enforcement resources to address illegal immigration. If Arizona is permitted to dic tate how and when immigration enforcement is warranted by unilaterally declaring it a priority for local law enforce ment to arrest individuals who are unlawfully in the United States and forcing federal authorities to receive the individu al for removal processing, then the balance of power between the states and the federal government is turned on its head. This is constitutionally impermissible because, as the courts have repeatedly held in other cases, “whatever power a state may have is subordinate to the supreme national law.”20

could amend federal laws regulating collaboration between state and federal enforcement entities to accommodate the kind of involvement envisioned in sb 1070. Popular or not, constitutional or not, sb 1070’s approach for handling ille gal immigration is front and center in the immigration reform dispute.

Notes 1

tatement by Governor Jan Brewer on Signing Senate Bill 1070 issued S April 23, 2010, available at azgovernor.gov/dms/.../PR_042310_State mentByGovernorOnSB1070.pdf.

For example, North Carolina (sj 1349), Pennsylvania (hb 2479), Rhode Island (hb 8142), and South Carolina (sb 4919).

tatement by Debbie Johnson, president and ceo of the Arizona Hotel and S Lodging Association, “Horizon” show aired July 7, 2010, http://www.azpbs .org/horizon/detail.php?id=1399#Business Leaders Respond to sb 1070.

United States v. Arizona CV-1013-PHX-SRB (AZ Dist. Ct 2010).

U.S. Constitution, Art. X.

DeCanas v. Bica 424 U.S. 351 (1976).

Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. 331 U.S. 218 (1947).

ris W. Kobach, “Reinforcing the Rule of Law: What States Can and K Should Do to Reduce Illegal Immigration,” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal vol. 22 (2008).

raig Harris, Alia Beard Rau, and Glen Creno, “Arizona Governor Signs C Immigration Law; Foes Promise Fight!” The Arizona Republic, April 24, 2010.

ennis Wagner, “Violence Is Not Up on Arizona Border despite Mexican D Drug War. Mexico Crime Flares, But Here Only Flickers,” The Arizona Republic, May 2, 2010.

tatement by Governor Jan Brewer on Signing Senate Bill 1070, April S 23, 2010, available at azgovernor.gov/dms/.../PR_042310_StatementBy GovernorOnSB1070.pdf.

Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 13-2928(c).

H.R. Rep. No. 99-682(I) at 46.

Hines v. Davidowitz 312 U.S. 52, 6 (1941).

a corn v. City of Phoenix 798 F 2d. 1260 (9th Cir. 1986). See also Comité

Conclusion 1070 faces an uphill battle, exemplified by the District Court’s order enjoining major portions of the bill from going into effect. The phrases thrown around to defend it may play well in the media, but they do not play well in constitutional construction. Arizona’s local problem with illegal immigra tion is no different from the problem in the nation as a whole. Arizona’s immigration statutes are not just like federal im migration statutes. And Arizona’s offer to do the federal gov ernment’s job changes the job description. Yet, even if Arizona is precluded from using the means it has chosen to address undocumented immigration, the ends envisioned may come to pass through other avenues. Many predict that Republicans will regain control of at least the House of Representatives. If the idea of sb 1070 proves to be popular with voters, a Republican-controlled Congress sb

de Jornaleros v. Redondo Beach 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 11733 No. 0655750 (9th Cir. June 9, 2010). 16

Craig Harris, Alia Beard Rau, and Glen Creno, op. cit.

U.S. Constitution Article VI, Clause 2.

Tafflin v. Levitt 493 U.S. 455 (1990).

Chae Chan Ping v. U.S. 130 U.S. 581 606 (1889).

Hines v. Davidowitz 312 U.S.52, 68 (1941).

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Arizona’s Law The Wrong Strategy Joshua Lott/REUTERS

Paz Consuelo Márquez-Padilla*

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is one of sb 1070’s most enthusiastic supporters.

exico, an underdeveloped country, is next door to what is still the world’s most powerful econ omy and continues to be a magnet not only for the unemployed, but also for millions earning low wages with poor prospects. On the other hand, north of the border there is a real need for foreign workers in some sectors and regions, a need that becomes more obvious during economic growth, although more restrictions apply in times of recession. In short, two essential circumstances are linked to migration: a real transnational labor market and the attempt to move from poverty to abundance. Migration between the United States and Mexico cannot be considered a problem, but rather a reality that both coun tries have no alternative but to accept, trying to encourage the creation of benefits and lessen the risks. Naturally, it has consequences and not all of them are positive. That is the challenge. But what oceans, deserts, fences, mountain ranges,

* Researcher at cisan.

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or wars have not been able to do is stop it. Neither will laws, or more fences, or intelligent robots. Almost 300 million people enter the United States le gally from Mexico every year. A million legal crossings take place every day, and probably another million people are de ported a year when they try to enter illegally. Today, 11 mil lion undocumented migrants are officially recognized in the United States, but the real number could be several million more. Many of these are Mexicans who melt into new com munities; and this causes social tension, undoubtedly a se rious problem for the United States. The wage differential is astounding. In the United States, working in agriculture or housework, a person can earn in one hour what someone in Mexico earns in a whole day. In certain occupations, the differential has grown to a ratio of 12-to-1 according to 1990-1998 data.1 It is true that the cost of living is lower in Mexico, so people can more or less get along day to day, prospects for improve ment are limited. That is why millions risk their lives for a

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better future, not only for themselves, but also for their children. They think that in the United States, even as agri cultural laborers with long working days, bad pay, and suf fering abuse, they will very probably be able to give one of their children a college education and a profession. This is repeated generation after generation, so that the prospect of migrating becomes an existential driving force for many teen agers, who have the idea that if they do it, they will be able to go to school.2 Unfortunately, many Mexicans actually experi ence terrible tragedy, some of them dying in the attempt. We are looking at the heart-breaking face of capitalism. Today, more or less six million Mexicans live illegally in the United States. Mexico could argue that as long as there is a demand for workers, illegal migration will continue. The United States, for its part, can only talk about law-breaking, but as long as both countries do not take it on as a shared prob lem, the situation will be unmanageable. There is no sim ple solution, but at the very least, a different perspective from the two countries could help exercise some control over the matter. In line with Saskia Sassen’s thinking, migration can not be understood as an individual decision, but as a process involving complex economic, social, and ethnic networks, a phenomenon that is part and parcel of the great transnational geopolitical and economic dynamics.3 We could easily imagine a positive situation for the two countries. Given low U.S. population growth, we all know that the U.S. Congress is feeling a certain amount of pressure to change immigration policy as well as to not completely close the border because workers are needed for businesses to be successful. At the same time, the Mexican economy does not generate enough jobs to absorb its growing population. Undoubtedly, Mexico benefits from the remittances sent home. However, these have dropped given the economic crisis: in April 2010, workers sent US$1.78 billion home to their families, while in 2008 the figure was US$1.95 billion.4 Despite this, remittances continue to be the third source of income for the Mexican economy, with the greatest amounts going to the states of Mexico, Jalisco, and Michoacán.5 As long as Mexican workers continue to be undocument ed, they will earn very low wages and their human rights will continue unprotected. Mexico cannot, or should not, bet on the policy of “the whole enchilada” and send its workers abroad.6 In the long run, that would be very bad for the coun try since the economy that loses its young people will even tually suffer the consequences. In Mexico, population changes begin to be noticeable, with a marked increase in the num

Migration is not an individual decision; it involves complex economic, social, and ethnic networks, and is part of the great transnational geopolitical and economic dynamic.

ber of senior citizens. Temporary workers with full rights can benefit both economies, but they would also have to pay a certain price. Agreements for temporary migration will have to be fostered, taking into account experiences like the Bra cero Program and trying to surpass them, avoiding their pit falls. Our two countries should stop blaming each other and assume responsibility for a phenomenon immersed in a glob alization that is here to stay. Sassen also argues that migration should be dealt with in a broader context. She says that it is one of the constitu ent processes of globalization even if this is not recognized as such by the main explanations of the global economy.7 In other words, it is illusory to think that illegal immigration can be ended by building a barrier that will put a brake on globalization itself. This author thinks that the idea of sover eignty implicitly includes the state’s capacity to determine who its citizens are. However, she also insists that it is neces sary to reconstruct the concept of citizen, formulating it from the economic point of view as a person who enjoys universal rights regardless of his or her nationality. Rather than call ing migrants “illegals,” they should be classified as workers in the informal economy.8 Unfortunately, the prospects seem bleak. Samuel Hunt ington tells an imaginary story that has had unfortunate re sults.9 This influential Harvard professor created a narrative that dominates the social imaginary of the United States even today. In his famous work The Clash of Civilizations, he al ready pointed to Mexican migration as the main threat to the United States.10 After the 9/11 terrorist attack, his analysis reinforced his hypothesis that the great threat was not from the Muslims, but the continued “invasion of Mexican im migrants.” According to Huntington, given that the country receives large numbers of immigrants from many countries, and given civil rights movements, U.S. identity is defined today in terms of culture and creed.11 This creed includes the predominance of the English language, Christianity, the rule of law, individ 109

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Agreements on temporary migration will have to take into account experiences like the Bracero Program and try to surpass them, avoiding their pitfalls.

ual rights, Protestant values, and the work ethic. Down through history, different immigrant cultures have enriched the found ing culture. In his opinion, today’s multiculturalism has em phasized the group identity based on race, ethnicity, and gender, while national identity has suffered the consequen ces. He affirms that this is the result of globalization, which is endangering the national state. In this new stage, he affirms, the single most immediate threat to U.S. traditional identity comes from the immense, continual immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, and the high birth rates of these immigrants compared to those of U.S.-born Blacks and Whites.12 Hispanic immigration is different from prior waves of mi grants since they have not been culturally assimilated. Hunt ington posits that if the flow of Mexican immigrants were to stop, wages for the lowest-paid U.S. workers would improve. If Mexican migration stopped, others would feel motivated to learn English and their education and training would im prove. But the core of his position is that he thinks Mexican migration is a potential risk for the country’s cultural and political integrity.13 When it is to his advantage, Huntington includes Mexi cans in the Hispanic community, but sometimes he separates them out to underline the danger they represent for Ameri canness. This belief has become dominant and, as a result, many Americans feel threatened by Mexican-Americans. Un fortunately, the Harvard professor never mentions the benefits of this migration for his country’s economy. Naturally, it is wrong to just talk about the “danger” of Mexican migration, particularly when the United States has an economy that until very recently had been in constant expansion, in large part due to the boom in certain areas where Mexican undoc umented workers predominate and where previously Poles, Irish, or Asians were employed. Denying this reality is sim ply unserious. There is no viable solution to the problem Huntington imagined; he limited himself to sparking anti-Mexican senti ments that have been just as damaging for all Americans as 110

for Mexican-Americans, since the latter are part of the United States whether Huntington likes it or not. It is precisely this kind of thinking that prevents build ing bridges of understanding. Other countries that look at the relationship between the United States and Mexico can easily see the benefits to both nations, although the stake holders themselves seem to not see the opportunities. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s justification for signing sb 1070, the law criminalizing undocumented immigration, was that the federal government had not fulfilled its func tion of protecting the borders and those decades of inaction and mistaken policies had led to a dangerous situation. Ac cording to Brewer, violence has increased along the border, and 500,000 undocumented migrants already live in Arizona.14 She says that the law only penalizes on a state level what is already classified as a crime in federal legislation. She adds that the federal 1940 Alien Registration Act already mandates legal immigrants to carry their green cards or some other im migration document with them. The problem is that the new law allows police to demand seeing the identity papers of persons who in their judgment look like Mexicans or Latinos: an unequivocal act of discrim ination. It is also a violation of the rights of Mexican-Amer icans, since, despite their being citizens, this law authorizes their detention simply because of their phenotypical charac teristics when “reasonable doubt” exists about whether they are legal or not. Even Arizona police are afraid of the repercussions of en forcing this law. They think that they are going to lose either way: if they enforce it and if they do not. The law states that any citizen can demand a police officer enforce it and make a complaint against him/her for not carrying out his/her duty; in addition, the Arizona government will earmark funds to de fend officers accused of non-compliance. The federal government, for its part, has argued that the Supremacy Clause giving it authority over and above state governments in these matters should not be violated. Obama presented the case in a local court, arguing the law was un constitutional. Fortunately, the judge ruled that it was not ac ceptable to request documents from someone merely on the basis of his/her appearance. The situation reveals the existing consensus about the breakdown of the immigration system. Despite the fact that 2008 was the year the Border Patrol made the fewest arrests, that the crime rate has dropped, and that, in addition, immi gration also dropped due to better controls and the economic

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recession, now is the time that this discriminatory bill emerged.15 This is due in part to the problem of unemployment, to the perception that Mexican immigration is the United States’ main problem, and to the fact that this is an election year. Suf fice it to point out that in the polls, the governor’s ratings went up immediately. And the law itself has 70 percent approval. It is clear that with a difficult economic situation, many blame the budget deficit on undocumented immigrants,16 and find the solution to the problem in denying them public ser vices or reducing their number. Now, it is up to Mexico to understand that this is not just a matter of the political deci sions of a governor, but that in many other states discontent about the issue of immigration is spreading. According Gal lup polls, 51 percent of those who had heard of the law sup ported it and 39 percent opposed it, plus, eight out of every 10 citizens are in favor of a restrictive immigration reform.17 In 2010, in 45 states 1,180 bills and proposed resolutions related to immigrants and refugees were placed before local Congresses. Of these, 107 bills and 87 resolutions were passed and went into effect; in addition 38 bills are waiting to be signed into law by their respective governors.18 Twelve states are considering passing laws similar to Arizona’s, or even harsher ones. Many conservative groups have taken up the anti-im migrant banner, like the Tea Party against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration Team, Americans for Legal Immigration, the Fed eration for American Immigration (fair), the Law Enforce ment Association, and the nativists. All of them have come out for stricter measures and against amnesty, that is, against legal izing the status of undocumented immigrants. We know that measures like the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which proposed building a fence between the United States and Mexico, or sb 1070 will not resolve the immigration problem. Rather, they will fan the flames of xenophobic feelings that often lead to deaths, attacks, and a very tense environment. Fortunately, President Obama has recently changed his position to a much more realistic, conciliatory one. He ac cepts that the Arizona Law has the potential to violate the rights of innocent U.S. citizens who can be judged by how they look or speak.19 Each state will begin to establish rules when what is needed is a national standard. “Our task then is to make our national laws actually work, to shape a system that reflects our values as a nation of laws and a nation of immi grants.”20 Obama proposes going beyond the false debate. He is against amnesty because it would not be fair to those who have been waiting years for legal status, and it would promote illegal immigration. However, he does accept that while it is

Even Arizona police are afraid of the repercussions of enforcing this law. They think that they are going to lose either way: if they enforce it and if they do not.

not possible to simply legalize the status of 11 million people, it is also not feasible to deport them since he realizes that many are intimately integrated into the social fiber of the na tion since they have children born in the United States. Undocumented migrants have been the workforce on farms. Therefore, “a program of mass deportations would dis rupt our economy and communities in ways that most Amer icans would find intolerable.”21 In any society, everyone must be accountable, including businessmen and women, since it cannot be ignored that a significant part of the economy is outside the law: illegal workers. A comprehensive immigration reform must take all this into account. Undoubtedly, the fact that the president of the United States conceives of the migration issue in terms of its com plexity is a step the right direction. But this position has yet to become the dominant one. Immediate actions must be taken for it to dominate the discourse and the U.S. social imaginary. In November there will be congressional elections. If the voters punish the president’s performance, as they often do at midterm elections, the bipartisan consensus necessary for immigration reform will be even more difficult to achieve. Not all Republicans are against the reform, nor do all Democrats support one. This is an issue that has divided communities. Karl Rove himself, the famous neo-conservative Republican, has said that the Arizona law forced a dilemma on Republi cans who wanted to look tough on illegal immigration, given their conservative constituencies, but who did not want to alienate Latino voters.22 The existence today of 11 million undocumented mi grants allows us to understand Huntington’s concern when he underlines a future problem. But what is more, we can un derstand that a country with that many undocumented mi grants already has a big problem.23 Unfortunately, the Harvard expert’s words aim in the wrong direction because they have created fear and mistrust among the U.S. white population instead of promoting what we really need: being able to put ourselves in the place of the other to find common interests. We 111

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can understand that the interests of Mexican-Americans and undocumented migrants are necessarily linked to the interests of the country as a whole. Like Huntington, we can concentrate on the “cons,” the differences, and the irremediable tensions associated with them, or we can look for a middle ground that includes some interests of all the parties involved. Why see the border only as a conflict zone and not an area for cooperation? It is necessary to understand it as the space of a labor market where there is a supply of labor, but also a demand for it; and as long as both exist, migratory movements will be unstoppable. Demographics are what will fundamen tally make this situation change. In two decades, the young population in Mexico will decline, and there will no longer be so many young people who want to emigrate. On the other hand, the population of the United States is aging rapidly and will need young people to pay taxes to sustain their Medicare and Medicaid systems, above all now that the recently passed health care reform stipulates that the entire U.S. population, including senior citizens, must have medical insurance.

The border area is one of the most dynamic in the world.24 It contributes 24 percent of the total U.S. and Mexican econ omies together. From 1996 to 2006, the border economy grew 4.2 percent, while that of the United States grew 3.4 percent, and of Mexico only 3 percent. In 2008, 40 percent of direct investment in Mexico was made in the six border states, where the maquiladora plants are located.25 More than a conflict zone, the border should be seen as a pole for development that can contribute to lowering the effects of the crisis on both economies. In 2009 alone, al most nine million Mexicans visited Arizona spending almost US$250 million. Visitors from Arizona came to almost sev en million, and they spend about US$275 million.26 If poli ticians do not understand the weight of this reality and its positive impact, it is because short-term interests are blind ing them. It is undeniable that the governments of Arizona and Mexico must promote cooperation because, in fact, it already exists without them. For all these reasons, I have no doubt that sb 1070 is a wrong strategy.

Notes ee Alejandro Diaz-Bautista, José Alberto Avilés, and Mario Alberto Rosas S Chimal, “Desarrollo económico de la frontera norte de México,” Obser vatorio de la Economía Latinoamericana, http://www.eumed.net/cursecon /ecolat/. The authors analyze the impact of the crisis in the U.S. border area, underlining economic differences among states. 2 Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Estudio binacional de migración (Mex ico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1999). 3 Saskia Sassen, Losing Control (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 66. 4 El Economista (Mexico City), June 1, 2010. 5 “Ingresos por concepto de entidad federativa,” Banxico, http://www.banxi co.org.mx. 6 Jorge Castañeda, briefly foreign relations minister during the Fox admin istration, wanted to implement a policy of free flow of workers. I think that no country should implement this kind of policy; to the contrary, we should desperately try to keep our workers at home and create well-paying jobs. An explicit policy to create migrant workers is a mistake. Opening the flow of workers would necessarily go against the interests of Mexico. 7 Saski Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: The New Press, 1998). 8 Sassen, Losing Control, op cit., p. 97. 9 Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges of America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). 10 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). 11 Ibid., p. 1. 12 Ibid., p. 2. 13 Ibid. 14 According to the fbi, the four cities with the fewest crimes are on the border: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso, and Austin. Ken Dilanian and Nicholas Riccardi, “Border Security Trips Up Immigration Debate,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2010. 15 In Barack Obama’s opinion, the southern border is safer today than it has been at any other time. See “Remarks on Comprehensive Immigration 1

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Reform,” a speech at the American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C., published by the White House July 1, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-compre hensive-immigration-reform. 16 Saskia Sassen quotes a study by an urban Washington, D.C. institute which argues that undocumented immigrants contributed US$30 billion more in taxes than they utilized in services. Globalization and Its Discon tents, op. cit., p. 72. 17 Rasmussen Reports showed that the support comes from the possible voters in Arizona, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/content/search?Searchtext= arizona+immigration. 18 Regardless of whether these laws are approved or not, it is symptomatic of the wave of initiatives related to migration. See “State by State Immi gration Policy Changes Ahead,” National Public Radio, Sept. 9, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.pnp?storyId=128193244. 19 Barack Obama, op. cit. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Stephanie Condon, “Karl Rove Speaks Out against Arizona Immigration Law,” cbs Political Hotsheet, April 28, 2010, http://www.cbsnews. com/8301-503544_162-20003631-503544.html, and www.freerepublic. com/tag/rove/index. 23 Ruth Ellen Wasem, Immigration Reform Issues in the 111 Congress, Congres sional Research Service, July 13, 2009, www.nationalaglawcenter.org/ assets/crs/R40501. 24 Alejandro Díaz-Bautista, José Alberto Avilés, and Mario Rosas Chimal, “Desarrollo económico de la frontera norte de México,” Observatorio de la Economía Latinoamericana, http://www.eumed.net/cursecon/ ecolat/, p. 2. 25 Economic Section, U.S. Embassy in Mexico, http://mexico.usembassy.gov. 26 Centro de Información y Estadística para el Empresario Turístico, using information from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Tourism Section, Banco de México, and Mexico’s Institute of Geography and Statistics (inegi).

On the Labyrinths Of sb 1070 Rick Scuteri/REUTERS

Silvia Núñez García*

“Nothing important can come from the South.” Henry Kissinger1

eyond debating whether the key for harmonious in teraction among the different groups in U.S. soci ety, including ethnic, racial, or religious minorities, is to be found in the economic variables, the labor market has proved itself an arena for conflict and ideological competi tion there. Here, we can note the recurrence of exclusionary laws and positions that marked even the first workers’ organ izations in the nineteenth century, all the way up to the racial prejudices that speak to how U.S. capitalism is anchored in individualism and the meritocracy, but also in the institution alized exercise of discrimination. * Director of cisan.

What this means is that, even today, simply being born white in the United States makes for advantages over people from other minorities, and that, despite many Americans con sidering themselves anti-racist, their society has not complete ly gotten away from explicit or implicit patterns of behavior that perpetuate the stereotypes of inferiority that many groups are assigned for reasons of differences in creed, national identity, ethnicity, etc. This forces us to understand that rac ism and discrimination are not fixed and that every culture, being essentially ethnocentric, will seek to surpass others or even subject or exclude the “others” it considers “different.”

The Political Scenario A concrete example of this is sb 1070, which came into ef fect with the limitations that U.S. District Court Judge Su 113

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san Bolton stipulated to lessen its impact without violating the sovereignty of the state of Arizona and at the same time safeguard the federation. Putting to one side the openly dis cretionary, racist measures the law contains, clearly all po litical forces in the United States have agreed that the path forward for any discussion about the scope of a migration re form must start with safeguarding border security. Based on this, to understand the political polarization this law has unleashed, we must begin by probing Arizona’s conser vatives, who are betting on what they expect to be victories in November’s midterm elections. The Arizona strategy, which has combined the legitimate use of self-defense with a media campaign using numbers to demonstrate that it has fulfilled the citizenry’s demand for protection, has already had a national impact regardless of Bolton’s decision, given that more than 20 states are now exploring similar bills (among them Alabama and Colorado) promoted by activists and lobbyists identified with the Re publican Party (gop).

We are watching a kind of reality show typical of the U.S. political game, in which theatrics are unavoidable for getting the increased attention undocumented migration deserves.

Examples are cited like University of Arizona experts’ fig ures showing that between 1990 and 2008, the Tucson-area Border Patrol has increased the number of detentions of undocumented migrants from one out of every 20.6 to one out of every 2.2. At the same time, estimates of undocument ed crossings into Arizona have dropped 49 percent since 2004. It is also said that in the last seven years, homicide fig ures have dropped 50 percent in Phoenix. These figures are a dual paradox for analysts: they can be interpreted in the sense of promoting the belief that “Yes, we can completely seal the southern border,” or they can make us reflect about why the de creasing crime rate does not directly correlate to reality, since the fear of being the target of violence at the hands of an un documented migrant has permeated many people’s thinking. What we are watching today is a kind of reality show typical of the U.S. political game, in which theatrics are un 114

avoidable for getting the increased attention that should be paid to undocumented migration, previously just one topic among many, and which has now come to be considered an important problem that has even turned critical. As rational actors, in the United States, not only influ ential individuals, but also interest groups, political candida tes, public officials, and particularly opinion leaders are perfectly familiar with the strategies of getting their interests includ ed in the sphere of decision making, and the steps needed for them to become visible in the public eye on different levels: local, state, and national. In the midst of clear political antagonism, President Oba ma has firmly ratified his commitments and convictions about the defense of civil rights by joining the rejection by pro gressives in the United States who fight against any indication of racism. However, his political opponents have denounced his stance against sb 1070 and more recently, his emphatic support for the construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York’s Ground Zero, as supposed signs of his anti-U.S. position. While for conservative reactionaries, the enforcement of sb 1070 is necessary —and for the Tea Party movement, it is patriotic— since it simply protects law-abiding citizens and legal residents, in mid-August, news reports began circulat ing alleging that Governor Jan Brewer has interests beyond a simple vocation for attending to the demands of her state: they link her to the business of privatizing the prisons.2 It has been pointed out that a year ago, the state of Arizona in tended to privatize its entire penitentiary system, setting a very polemical precedent in the United States, which for that reason was discarded. It is also interesting to note that in the rest of the country, the number of private prisons has actually dropped. In the United States, private companies interested in running detention centers are engaged in one of the country’s most powerful lobbying efforts. Analysts insist that Brewer is very closely linked to political consultant Chuck Cough lin, who in turn works for the most important company in this field, Corrections Corporation of America. The firm cur rently has an US$11-million-a-month federal contract, but, with the impact of sb 1070, it foresees a spike in the num ber of undocumented detainees and, as a result, in its profits. It is to be expected, then, that as the midterm elections ap proach, these kinds of reports will probably increase, in order to have an impact in the political arena. In the pluralist model of democracy identified with the United States, the capability to effectively and efficiently link

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up different interests around issues like the migration con trol is a result not only of the political will or conviction of individual and collective stakeholders, but above all to their ability to mobilize the financial and material resources that allow them to promote and profile the specificities the debate of an eventual migratory reform should include. Se lective amnesty? Temporary guest workers? Obligatory Eng lish? Overturning the 14th Amendment to end “birthright citizenship?” Etcetera. This kind of horizon is very difficult to predict.

The View from the South In Mexico, sb 1070 has caused generalized indignation. But we should point out that for most of us, it is difficult to un derstand the degree of anxiety many Americans experience because of the deterioration of the economy and lowered expectations. Our starting point should be that our refer ence points are generally opposed to each other, as demon strated in recent data from the Jus Semper Global Alliance: “In Mexico, the State policy that deliberately pauperizes Mexi can workers has imposed for three decades on manufacturing sector production-line workers the endurance of the worst real wages, in PPP terms…with an abysmal living-wage gap with the U.S. of 83 percent.”3 On the other hand, even though absolute control of the U.S.-Mexico border has proven illusory, the degree of social tension along it has increased for different reasons, like the existence of greater socio-spatial, economic, and cultural inter dependence. Anchored in the growing asymmetry that we already pointed out, this tension is exponential on the Mex ican side, given the ominous inequality between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” It may be worthwhile reminding ourselves that the Mex ico-U.S. border is unique worldwide because, with global ization, it stopped being a point of contact between two traditional communities. It was harder hit by this opening to the world of the free market when it became the center of attraction for new, more diverse stakeholders (migrants from Mexico’s interior, from Central America, from Asia, women alone and single mothers, businessmen, multinational firms, illicit businesses, new religious cults, sects, etc.). As a result of this mosaic, the social interaction among a wide gamut of groups each with its own perceptions, expectations, and val ues became fragmented and until now has not found com

mon aims or objectives to give it cohesion, leaving it at the mercy of violence and organized crime. We could even con sider the effects on their socialization of the fact that most of them arrived at Mexico’s northern border only to get to the United States, or to remain a short time and make the most of it. It is precisely in the framework of all these tensions be tween our two countries that joint reflection about the under lying determining factors becomes imperative. The cultural variable is one of them, although for the most part it is un explored. Dealing with this area, considering that it is an ac tive component of any identity, might allow us to glimpse the reasons why the links between the two nations end up marked by ambiguity time and again. In another sense, we Mexicans are obliged to remember the Obama administration’s limitations for articulating con sensuses domestically on particularly sensitive issues like mi gration. The president’s margins for action were clear when he presented his first State of the Union address, mention

In mid-August, news reports began circulating alleging that Governor Jan Brewer has interests linking her to the business of privatizing the prisons.

ing that the country is facing a deficit of internal and external trust and the challenge of leaving behind fear and division. It is true that the United States is going through a time when what is at stake is rebuilding social trust, since it is pro portionately facing similar challenges to those of the world’s other nations: globalization, inequality, and now, significantly, intolerance. However, for us, it is imperative to remember that on a local level in the United States, innumerable norms exist that have favored immigrants and their families.

Final Thoughts It is undeniable that the reactions to sb 1070 show that so cial equilibrium in the United States can be upset. Even though an important part of the citizenry remains optimistic, 115

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the first African-American taking office as president did not mean the automatic emergence of a new social paradigm based on inclusion. If the objective of politics is order, and that of the state is to suppress the division of its members, Barack Obama will have to show signs very soon that his youth is not an impediment to redirecting his leadership. Getting through this trial period is perhaps more difficult than winning the election in 2008: between June and August 2010, his ap proval rating has remained at 49 percent. So, in U.S. political culture, it can be seen that the pub lic’s trust is not centered on the government as an institu tion in general, but on the performance of the individual actors with whom people identify their own interests. If we remember then that countering the overwhelming majority of approximately 67 million voters who cast their ballots for Obama in 2008 are the 58 million voters who chose his rival,

Mexico’s biggest responsibility is building a future with dignity for all its nationals, since despair, violence, and fear have now been added to the lack of opportunities.

the light of the current characteristics of its society vis-à-vis the size of the undocumented population, taking into account the specificities of each region or locale? Is the step forward or backward that sb 1070 exemplifies now a medium- and longterm trend? What are the perceptions about this and what me diations could reverse them? On the other hand, Mexico’s greatest responsibility is building a future with dignity for all its nationals, since de spair, violence, and fear have now been added to the lack of opportunities. Our society has low levels of trust —perhaps even enormous mistrust— and weak or even non-existent in stitutions. This means that our problems can no longer be addressed with isolated —much less improvised—responses. The lucidity of Alexis de Tocqueville, who warned that substantive differences in people’s living conditions are a barrier that impedes social empathy, now offers us the way forward for both countries to talk together. We think that our interaction is not only increasing, but is absolutely irrevers ible and cannot be abandoned. Therefore, there is no way to promote the material success of either of our countries if it is preceded by the social failure of one of them. The obligatory question is: Can we contribute from our side? Some ideas for this are

we can appreciate the climate of challenges that he has to overcome if he wants to become a true statesman. In politics, losing to your adversary means you did not perceive the slivers of pessimism taken over by the opposition forces who want to win power. One of these is the melding of undocumented migration and security very ably achieved by emissaries from the past who remind us that the conservative logic is in essence not thinking, but unthinking reaction. In this context, their liberal counterpart is exemplified by Beth F. Merenstein, when she writes, “The idea that the United States is still ‘the land of opportunity’ has not dissi pated much in the last two hundred years.”4 However, we would even go further, saying that the economic, social, and cultural influence on the United States represented by the labor of Mexican immigrants —documented or not— cannot be erased by decree. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile asking ourselves: what is it that generates greater consensus in the United States in 116

r ecognizing the socio-cultural gap between the two nations, seeking alternatives to narrow it; • strengthening bi-national alliances to study the phenom enon in depth and come up with short-, medium-, and long-term goals; and • a dding anthropological and psychosocial variables to traditional economic, political, and sociological var iables. •

Notes 1

ormer Secretary of State Kissinger said this to Chilean Minister of F Foreign Affairs Gabriel Valdés during the Eduardo Frei administration after Valdés disagreed with statistical data Richard Nixon had cited on Latin America at a meeting headed by Kissinger in June 1969. [Editor’s Note.]

“ The Rachel Maddow Show,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/# 38685023, August 12, 2010.

http://www.jussemper.org/contactus.html, accessed August 20, 2010.

eth Frankel Merenstein, Immigrants and Modern Racism. Reproducing B Inequality (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2008), p.78.

Concluding Thoughts Joshua Lott/REUTERS

D. Rick van Schoik*

The Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.

assion and complexity create hysteria about migra tion issues but also mis- and dis-information. So it was especially refreshing to initiate a dispassionate but complex dialogue on the topic with our partner center, the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Center for Research on North America (cisan). However, even though there was clear articulation of the issues, the double-edged nature of the topic arose over and over again. The North American Center for Transborder Studies (nacts) cannot work in the real world without Arizona’s Sen ate Bill 1070 confounding our ability to be heard on the border, security, prosperity, and competitiveness problems we work on. Foundations that support us in Mexico have already asked us not to broadcast the fact that we are from Arizona, as it taints them as well. So, rather than focusing on the rippling and ricocheting effects of 1070, we are instead using it as a stepping stone * Director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies, Arizona State University.

to a broader discussion of the bilateral relationship, of labor and skill mobility to and within North America. One double-edged finding of the workshop was that mi gration has different costs, benefits, and returns on invest ments in different parts of both the sending nation and the receiving nation. “Homogenizing” the discussion —as so often happens— can be counter-productive. Another disparity is among the legislative and enforce ment actions at the state, local, tribal, and municipal levels creating a patchwork of policies in anticipation of action at the federal level and the juxtaposition of those two realities against the almost absolute void of binational or international diplomacy between sending and receiving nations. Another conundrum was migration tending to position the advocates of human rights, dignity, respect, and protec tion against law enforcement, which tends to result in the unintentional criminalization of the issue. The risks of irregular migration range from the real dan ger of dying in the ovens of the deserts and hazards in the remote wilds of the borderlands to the actual threats migrants 117

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face during the crossing ordeal, and then their presence as economic migrants. The benefits of migration to the individual and to nations also cover a wide gamut. The U.S. has an alphabet soup of border and migration agencies —dhs cbp, ice, and cis—1 and Canada has re ciprocated by establishing the Canadian Border Security Agency and rededicating the efforts of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to border issues. Mexico has yet to develop counter parts to each of these agencies, complicating diplomacy on migration issues. The bottom line is that federal inactivity is misguided and even dangerous. Even on such innocuous challenges as a national id card, the U.S. federal government is still stalled, and the ideal of a tamper-proof remotely-read id and bio metric-validated E-verify employment system will be delayed years due to cost. In the meantime, progress on the most

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tragic component of international migration, human traffick ing, is hanging back. nacts hopes that the two young cosmopolitan presi dents rediscover the imperative of progress on development, diplomacy, and defense concurrently. Furthermore, nacts advocates using the model of Canadian-Mexican migration policy and getting the issue onto the agenda at the North American Leaders Summit. Since labor and skill mobility enhance our common se curity, our shared prosperity, and North America’s competi tiveness, they are too important to delay acting upon.

Notes 1

d hs: Department of Homeland Security; cbp: U.S. Customs and Border Protection; ice: U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; cis: Citi zenship and Immigration Services.

LIterature

Liliana Valenzuela, A Contemporary Malinche: On Being a Bilingual and Bicultural Creative Scribe Nico Tucci

Interview by Claire Joysmith*

iliana Valenzuela smiles broadly, her blue eyes twinkling happily beneath a mass of naturally curly blonde hair. As we talk, she moves easily from Spanish into English and back into Spanish, and we joke about her as a contemporary Malinche “güera” figure. As I glean by conversing with her and glancing at her card and website (http:// www.lilianavalenzuela.com/Home.html), I am aware she readily identifies with la Malinche, a maligned historical figure, and more recently reconfigured (particularly in Chicana writings) as an icon of trans-cultural/linguistic creative production and politics.

*Researcher at cisan.

Liliana laughs candidly as she responds. “La Malinche has been my alter ego since the days back in 1988 when I was studying anthropology and folklore at the University of Texas. I was attracted to La Malinche, wanted to study her in more depth, find out what was really true and what was slap ped onto her as the ‘Mexican Eve.’ I found that many indigenous communities saw her as a powerful being, a duality with Cortés, since they were represented as such in the codices. La Malinche was, after all, one of the first interpreters of the Amer icas, since she was fluent in Náhuatl, Mayan, and was quick to learn Spanish. I found that La Malinche is also a fertility dance enacted, curiously enough, by men with lizard masks in a remote village in the state of Guerrero. So, I realized that 119

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a lot of extraneous meanings, including that of traitor, had been layered on her throughout the centuries. I sought to reclaim her legacy and give her back her true power. Later, when I be came a translator, she seemed like a most fitting symbol for me. Malinalli, la lengua, the tongue, she who has the power of the word in several languages.” Few people are truly aware of the innate talent and skills needed to develop as a translator. So what special skills or combination of skills does Liliana herself bring to the table, particularly as a literary translator? “Our job and our partic ular talents and skills are often invisible, especially for those who are monolingual. I feel fortunate that, after many years of study and of living in the U.S., I acquired language skills translating from English into Spanish; but I also had a background in anthropology and, as you know, one is translating not only the language but also the culture. That, in addition to my developing as a poet and writer, made literary translation a logical choice for me. It helps enormously to also be a writer, or to have a musical ear.” Clearly, literary translation is an art in itself. “Translation involves analysis —structural, semantic, cultural, and linguistic— but it also brings in inspiration, the desire and abil120

“Translation involves analysis —structural, semantic, cultural, and linguistic— but it also brings in inspiration, the desire and ability to recreate someone’s words in Spanish with as much flair and excitement as the original.”

ity to recreate someone’s words in Spanish with as much flair and excitement as the original.” Liliana Valenzuela was awarded the 2006 Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation for her version into Spanish of Nina Marie Martínez’s novel ¡Caramba! And she has translated into Spanish a considerable number of literary works by renowned U.S. Latina/o writers. Among these are Sandra Cisneros (El arroyo de la Llorona, Caramelo, and Hairs/ Pelitos), Julia Álvarez (Devolver al remitente, Había una vez una quinceñera: De niña a mujer en e.e.u.u., En busca de mi lagros, Un regalo de gracias, and Cuando tía Lola vino de visita/a quedarse), Cristina García (Las caras de la suerte), Denise Chávez (La última de las muchachas del menú), Alex Espinoza (Los santos de Agua Mansa), Raúl Fernández (Latin Jazz: La combinación perfecta, Association of American Museums Best Book Award), and several Latina/o authors in the anthology edited by Cristina García, Voces sin fronteras. Literary translating is a laborious, subtle, punctilious, and time-consuming trade requiring an inborn talent with words. So, when it comes to translating an entire volume, how does she pace herself, what steps does she follow to reach the final publication stage? “Good question. I usually allow four to six months for translating a full-length novel or short story collection. I usually do four thorough revisions, top to bottom. The first one is for accuracy, comparing with the source text, line by line. The second one is for fluency, putting the original away. The third one is for queries and research, finding out all the details that are pending. The fourth one for readability, grammar, and punctuation. It has to be print-ready, even though it usually goes to a copyeditor first, then two or three proofs. By the time the book is published, I have nearly memorized it!” And what about her relationship with the author whose work she’s translating? “I usually highlight the terms I’m not sure about in the digital document and funnel them to lists, for the author or for friends and colleagues. When I’ve a good page or two of questions, I ask the author. Most have been very

L iterature

The work of Latina and Chicana authors in the U.S. bring together a crossroads of political, cultural, social, and identity issues that speak directly to and inform not only Chicana/os and U.S. Latinos/as, but other readers on a global scale.

agreeable and interested in the translation. So, many solutions have been the result of brainstorming on the phone or finding something relevant on the Internet, or asking third sources.” Liliana Valenzuela was named by Univisión as “Orgullo Latino de la semana” (Latino Pride of the Week) in 2007. Publishing in Spanish within the U.S. must surely involve particular challenges. “Spanish is the second un-official language of the United States, with a large reading public, many of them recent immigrants. And even some long-time immigrants prefer to read in their native language, and they want their children to keep the language. So, it makes sense to pub lish both translations and original works in Spanish in the U.S. The challenge is that many editors and publishing houses are not fluent in Spanish and are not as well-informed about the different Spanish-speaking cultures, and typesetters often don’t know Spanish, so that process is often lengthy and new mistakes are introduced. Right now, the publishing industry is in flux, so there are fewer commissioned translations at the moment.” Latina and Chicana authors in the U.S. have had considerable publishing success there in the last few decades. Their work brings together a crossroads of political, cultural, social, and identity issues that speak directly to and inform not only Chicana/os and U.S. Latinos/as, but other readers on a global scale. In this sense, what kind of political statement is being made when you translate U.S. Latina/o work into Spanish and these are published in the U.S.? “Well, the publishing model is changing, so nobody really knows how the content is going to be transmitted in the future. As the recession deepens, there is less money to publish and less money for people to buy books. But then you have the Internet and content being provided even via cell phones, so everything is changing. Politically, though, publishing in Spanish today flies in the face of the nativist currents dominating public discourse nowadays. It is an act of defiance.” Very few translations into Spanish of Chicana/o and U.S. Latina/o writings are available in Mexico and Latin Ameri-

ca. It is highly unusual, even, to find Sandra Cisneros’ novel Caramelo, much of which is set in Mexico City, on bookstore shelves in Mexico City itself. What might explain this? “This is a very good question, because it’s not only cultural neglect or ignorance that produces this situation in which many Chi cano/Latino authors are still unknown in Mexico and Latin America; it’s also a question of publication rights. The way it works, so far, is that Spain buys the translation and publication rights for Mexico and Latin America. When these books published in Spain are imported to the Americas, this makes for very expensive books, considered imports from Europe. And for some strange reason, books published in Spanish in the U.S. cannot be legally imported into, say, Mexico, because of the way publication rights are sliced up at the beginning. It makes no sense and, in my view, stands in the way of greater dissemination of this new literature, in Spanish translation, in the Americas.” As a committed translator, what routes has she taken to remain true to the original in English, that is, a loyal tra duttora, yet without betraying the text’s essence and becoming a traditora, one of the main challenges translators must face. How to offer the Spanish-speaking reader the true essence of English-language written Chicana cultural and linguistic experience and expression? Liliana smiles as I pose the question and as she responds, “Depending on the background of the author —say Chicana or Dominican or Cuban— I try to imagine how a particular character would speak, if he/she were to speak in Spanish, mixing in some English. It’s like being a ventriloquist. You have to make speech realistic, and yet it’s an interpretation, using words as signs.” When she deals with interlinguism —that is, the deliberate mixing of both linguistic codes, perhaps in a single sentence, even, which is possibly one of the main hallmarks of Chicana/o literary texts— what specific translation strategies does she resort to? “Well, I can give you an example to illustrate this from my translation of Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek/El arroyo de la Llorona: Micaela, puedes esperar afuera con Alfredito y Enrique. La abue la enojona siempre anda hablando en puritito español, que sólo entiendo si es que pongo atención. ¿Qué? le pregunto en inglés, aunque no es propio ni educado. ¿What? Lo que la abuela enojona oye como ¿Guat? Pero ella sólo me lanza una mirada y me empuja hacia la puerta. (Translation by Liliana Valenzuela)1

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It’s not only cultural neglect or ignorance that produces a situation in which many Chicano/ Latino authors are still unknown in Mexico and Latin America; it’s also a question of publication rights.

ing in other sentences, to avoid using footnotes. Some of the translations have also been well received in Mexico, at least from the audience responses I encountered in Monterrey and Mexico City. I’m not sure what Mexican critics have to say about this type of literature or its translation.” —Zo-rraight, my friend? —Zo-rraight —contestó Inocencio. —Zenc iús. Meny zencs. —Iu are moust güelcome —dijo el hombre del frac con un acento

Micaela, you may wait outside with Alfredito and Enrique. The

muy curioso, como una escoba barriendo un piso de piedra.

awful grandmother says it all in Spanish, which I understand

—¿Espic espanish? —se aventuró Inocencio.

when I’m paying attention. “What?” I say, though it’s neither

—¡Por fin! ¡Alguien que hablaba el idioma de Dios! Wenceslao

proper nor polite. “What?” which the awful grandmother hears

Moreno para servirle —dijo orgullosamente el hombre del frac

as “¿Guat?” But she only gives me a look and shoves me to-

y se quitó el sombrero de copa, relampagueando por un mo-

ward the door. (Original by Sandra Cisneros)2

mento una calva. (Translation by Liliana Valenzuela) —Zaw-rright, my friend? —Zaw-rright, Inocencio answered. –Thank yous. Many thanks. —You are most welcome, the tuxedo man said with a most curious accent, like a broom sweeping across a stone floor. —Spic Spanish? Inocencio ventured. —Finally! Someone who speaks the language of God! Wen ceslao Moreno to serve you, the tuxedo man said proudly and tipped his top hat, flashing for a moment a bald head. (Original by Sandra Cisneros)3

Liliana Valenzuela

Liliana Valenzuela’s Mexican and Tex-Mex-flavored trans lations have been published in Spain and read in Mexico. What has the response been? “Well, Grupo Planeta from Spain bought my translation of Sandra Cisneros’s novel Ca ramelo, breaking a pattern of commissioning their own peninsular translations. They wanted the more authentic flavor of a Chicana/Mexican translation, but that would still remain understandable and enjoyable to them. I mostly used region alisms for the dialogue, sometimes weaving in the mean-

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In addition to being a well-known translator, Liliana Valenzuela is a writer and poet in her own right. She has previously written of herself, “Through my poetry and essays in two languages, I seek to voice the experience of a Mexican woman who lives in Texas, yet is a citizen of the world.” Her own writings as poet and author have surely been informed and inspired by her interest in translating Latina authors, haven’t they? “I became acquainted with Latina authors while in college, and their work spoke closely to me, as a woman and as a Mexican. I could relate to it. And I admired their bravery and innovation. Still do. I wanted to write with as much courage and musicality as they do. And in the process I’ve become a Mex-Tex, or Chicalanga (Chicana-Chilanga)4 or, according to Sandra Cisneros, a ‘reverse Chicana,’ writer.” Liliana, who also writes poetry, non-fiction and essays, has won several writing awards, such as four first prizes sponsored by the Austin Poetry Society, among them, The Spoken Word Poetry 2009 Award for the poem “son cubano” and The Mary Oliver Award in 2009 for the poem “Sirena Cósmica/Cosmic Siren.” Among her publications we find Bocas palabras (Poetry Chapbook competition winner); Mujer frontera/Mujer Malinche, The Poetry of Rice Fields; “Reflexiones post 11.7.02: un nopal y una banderita estadu nidense,” “Una escritora chilanga texana” (Blanco Móvil, Mexico); “Nov. 2, 1988: On the Eve of Becoming an American Citizen” (poetry finalist in the first Panliterary Awards Competition); “Virgencita, give us a chance” (essay in Goddess of the Americas/La Diosa de las Américas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe, edited by Ana Castillo); and “Sinvergüenza” (poem in the video-poem Ella es frontera/Border She Is by Pilar Rodríguez). She has recently completed a fulllength poetry manuscript entitled Codex of Desire/Códice del deseo. So, in what concrete ways has the practice of literary translation served as a writing apprenticeship for her? She again smiles charmingly as she muses, “Well, I‘ve learnt, for instance, how to craft a well-written sentence, paragraph, chapter. Good writing holds its shape, even when you pour it into a new language, while bad writing falls apart and you have to rewrite it so that it makes sense. Good writing can stand strong winds, intense glare, and icy temperatures and still shimmer. Also, I’ve learned that chapter opening and ending paragraphs are very important. It’s worth spending extra time with them, both as a writer and as a translator.”

Liliana, who also writes poetry, non-fiction, and essays, has won several writing awards, such as four first prizes sponsored by the Austin Poetry Society, among them.

Liliana Valenzuela has been translating fiction, non-fiction and poetry for many years and has earned herself a high reputation in the field —no easy task in the art of translation’s competitive circles. As a writer, however, this poses a true challenge, perhaps we could call it a risk, in juggling both her personal creative urge and her job translating/re-writing the work of others. “I do compartmentalize a bit, especially if I’m translating a novel. I could write poetry or essays, but not fiction. It would hard to hold two imaginary worlds together in my head, and still function in my daily life.” In some of her work, Liliana’s own particular style is revealed, for instance, in her usage of a singular intentional bicultural interlinguism. This brings up an inevitable question begging to be asked: which of these two writing worlds is closest to her heart? “Well, I’ve become known for my published translations of well-regarded Latino authors, but in my heart I’m a writer first and foremost. I could live without translating, but I couldn’t live without writing.” As she says this, Liliana smiles that engaging smile of hers, una Malinche contemporánea y güera, happy in both languages, in both cultures, ready to juggle linguistics, culture and creativity. And although the interview has come to a close, our conversation carries on, as it were, off the page.

Notes 1

andra Cisneros, “Mericanos,” El arroyo de la Llorona y otros cuentos, S Liliana Valenzuela, trans. (New York: Random House-Vintage Español, 1996).

andra Cisneros, “Mericans,” Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, S (New York: Random House First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, 1992).

andra Cisneros, Caramelo (New York: Random House/Vintage Español, S 2003), simultaneous English/Spanish publication.

hilanga/o is a term used by and for those who are are born in Mexico City C and those living there who become identified with it.

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Nov. 2, 1998: On the Eve of Becoming An American Citizen by Liliana Valenzuela

Not me, not I a gringa I would never be gritos de “muera el imperialismo yanqui” resonando en mi cabeza yo, la Malinche, “there is always me-search in research” going full circle me an American a Mexican-American a bona fide Chicana chayote-head My life is here now raising my bilingual chilpayates married, metida hasta las chanclas in this brave new world. A binational una Nutella bicolor vainilla y chocolate dual citizenship, at least, los políticos en México finally woke up to us “raza” on this side of the border. Welcome Paisano, Bienvenido Amigo, hasta que se les prendió el foco, cabrones. Ahora sí, pásenle, que su nopal está lleno de tunas. Aquí en la frontera, en el no-man’s-land, mujer puente, mujer frontera, mujer Malinche. 124

Ahora sí, cuando me chiflen por la calle me podrán decir “gringuita” y por primera vez lo seré, una bolilla, una gabacha, mis ojos azules y cabello rubio por fin corresponderán a los estereotipos de la gente “But you don’t look Mexican…” Enton’s ¿qué parezco? ¿acaso tengo changos en la cara? When I die, spread my ashes along the Rio Grande, the Río Bravo, where I once swam naked.

REVIEWS

Celebrating Mexico’s History

exico’s celebration of the bicentennial of its in dependence may be remembered mainly for its spectacular fireworks, the dancing cathedral, the anonymous colossus, or simply for the profligate festivities, that spirit of “sparing no expense,” which, as Octavio Paz ob served in El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Soli tude), is a vigorous characteristic of our national idiosyncrasy. Fortunately, the festivities also included other forms of remembering the fights for independence and the revolu tion: much quieter and more discreet, but destined, if not to last forever, at least to transcend the mere date in question and being a pretext for awakening or creating a vulgar, highly ques tionable form of nationalism. I am referring here to the mate rials published to commemorate the centennials. Given the impossibility of reviewing that entire vast, di verse production, I will comment on the books published by the Senate Special Commission, which used most of its re sources earmarked to commemorate these historic anniversa ries to create an interesting, well-planned publishing program —even if it did leave out some things. It should be mentioned that this commission, made up of legislators from different parties, is headed by Senator Mel

quíades Morales Flores, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (pri), and its pro bono executive director is Dr. Patricia Galeana, the well-known historian who designed and guided the editorial work itself, giving it its own distinctive seal.

Legal Works 1. The Historia de las instituciones jurídicas de los estados (His tory of the States’ Legal Institutions) Collection One of this publishing program’s most notable proposals is the Historia de las instituciones jurídicas de los estados (History of the States’ Legal Institutions) collection, a series of 33 books in a medium-sized format with gold covers dedicated to each of the 32 states (including Mexico City’s Federal District), plus an introductory volume covering the territories (like Texas, California, New Mexico, and Utah) that are no longer part of Mexico, but which, in their time, produced sui generis legal instruments. The collection was published jointly with the unam Institute for Legal Research, and coordinated by Dr. Patricia Galeana and Dr. Daniel Barceló. 125

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Despite the high degree of specialization needed to write each volume, Historia de las instituciones jurídicas de los estados is not necessarily directed at specialists. There is no attempt to present a history of the creation of each state’s Constitution. However, in every case, differ ent documents are examined that had a definitive influence on the existing legal framework in each state. It would not be wrong to say, however, that each book’s center is the story of the vicissitudes of how the local Constitution came into be ing, how it was written, and how it was amended and its ar ticles repealed. Despite the high degree of specialization needed to write each volume, the work is not necessarily directed at special ists, but at a wider readership with an above-average educa tion. Almost all the books include a compact disc to show the reader the different documents relevant to each volume. 2. Constitución Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos en lenguas indígenas (The Mexican Constitution in In digenous Languages) Another of this program’s success es is the publication of the Consti tución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Mexican Constitution) in indigenous languages. Indigenous groups’ being ignored is a recurring problem in our country, and the pub lishing industry is no exception. It is thought —although not thought through— that there is no readership for books in indigenous languages. This is a mistake: Amatlanahuatili Tlahtoli Tlen. Mexicameh Nechico listli Sentlanahuatiloyan, the Consti tution published in Náhuatl jointly with Fondo de Cultura Económica publishers, quickly sold out and had to be re printed twice because of its popularity. This is still surprising, though if we take into account that most members of ethnic groups who know how to read in their own language, also read Spanish. There may be some who think —erroneously, in my opinion— that this makes producing works in native lan 126

guages pointless. But it should be remembered that creating a truly multicultural state like our own is conceived in the Constitu tion itself, and can only be achieved by recognizing, promoting, and res pecting the identity and dignity of every one of its cultures. Not doing that is the same as condemning them to disappear, or at least to live a segre gated life, which is the same as dis criminating against these Mexicans. The Senate also announced it is preparing to translate the Constitution into Maya, Mixtec, Za potec, and Tzotzil. Given the large number of indigenous lan guages (364, considering the variants of the main linguistic families), these publications are far from covering the needs of the 10 million Mexican indigenous. Nevertheless, it is a good start, and its symbolic importance should not be underesti mated. Lastly, it is important to point out that, together with Her manos Porrúa publishers, the Special Commission has also published and reprinted a pocket version of our Constitution in Spanish for mass distribution.

Historic Works Historical complexes, as we all know, are complicated and respond to multiple simultaneous determinants, in which the weft and woof of events intertwine to create unexpected forms subject to diverse readings. In Soberanía, representación nacional e independencia en 1808 (Sovereignty, National Repre sentation, and Independence in 1808), José Herrera Peña takes a magnifying glass to the crucial moment of independence. The author analyzes the dilemmas that emerged in New Spain because of the crisis on the Iberian Peninsula —“If there’s no king, what legitimizes the authority of the viceroy who represents him?” “Should we support Bonaparte, borrow the reins of state to wait for Fernando VII’s return, or take ad vantage of the moment to free ourselves from the yoke of the Spanish?”— leaving nothing as a given and dealing with the events. The author’s lively pen makes the text easy reading, making this book, the first of the Senate’s silver collection, co-published with the Ministry of Culture of Mexico City’s Federal District Government, accessible to all readers.

R eviews

Semblanzas, memorias y relatos de la Revolución Mexicana en Durango (Depictions, Memoirs, and Stories of the Mexican Revolution in Durango) is another story altogether. If the previous text was sweeping, this one concentrates on a very specific topic. If the former refers to an oft-cited, well-known event, this focuses on figures familiar only to specialists and readers of local history. However, the book’s author, Enrique Arrieta Silva, does something more than just give an account of figures like Domingo Arrieta León or Antonio Gaxiola Del gadillo, who were no less important in the revolutionary strug gle for being relatively unknown. Arrieta also offers us a lively picture of daily life in the Durango of that period, sprinkled with pleasing anecdotes. In my opinion, this part of the book is its greatest merit, so woefully missing from ordinary his toriographies: showing how revolutions are constituted as a slow, constant transformation of the life of a people. The work El constitucionalism mexicano. Influencias continen tales y trasatlánticas (Mexican Constitutionalism. Hemispheric and Transatlantic Influences), written by several specialists and coordinated by Patricia Galeana, exemplifies how history is nourished by a heterogeneous, tangled series of forces. In this case, the authors investigate the way in which the Constitu tions of Spain, France, or the United States and the political philosophy that sustains them oriented the creation of the different Constitutions written in our nation. By no means are the paradoxes omitted, nor the difficulties of adapting to the Mexican situation, trying also, in most cases successfully, to not repeat unidirectional causalities. If we conceive of a country’s constitutions as a mirror of its realities and aspirations —always veiled, always oblique, but faithful for he/she who knows how to interpret them— we will have to agree that their review in some dark way brings together its becoming and direction. It is precisely here that we can pinpoint one of this work’s main virtues: not only does it invite us to re visit independence, the reform, and the revolution through the documents produced by each movement, but it also looks to the uncertain future from their standpoint. With contributions from 17 researchers, Secularización del Estado y la sociedad (Seculariza

The Senate also announced it is preparing to translate the Constitution into Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Tzotzil, but given the large number of indigenous languages, these publications are far from covering the needs of the 10 million Mexican indigenous. tion of the State and Society) deals with a stage that is essen tial for understanding our history: the Reform Period. Seen superficially, the reform should not be included in a pub lishing program dedicated to commemorating the bicenten nial of independence and the centennial of the revolution. However, it occupies a natural place in the bibliography cov ered in this review because without it, our country would be inconceivable. Themes like the relationship between state and churches, the Masons, the Re form Laws, the obligations of the secular state —so often disobeyed in Mexico— fill its pages providing us with a clear —though by no means simple— vision of the falsely para doxical principle of secularization in a profoundly religious country. Fol lowing the tracks of the long, stillcurrent dispute between clerical interests and those of the state, and showing up the links of our secu larity and that of equivalent phe nomena in Latin America are some of the book’s other qualities. Like the previous book, and the two that follow, this text was published jointly with Siglo xxi Editores. Historia comparada de las Américas. Sus procesos indepen dentistas (Comparative History of the Americas. Its Inde pendence Processes) is a monumental work —more than 30 researchers from the whole hemisphere participate— that is part of an even vaster project coordinated by Dr. Galeana. This second volume reviewed here —the first was published without the participation of the Senate commission— was published together with the unam Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (cialc), the oas’s Pan american Institute of Geography and History (ipgh), and Si glo xxi Editores. This comparative history reviews the freedom struggles all over the Americas, opening up unsuspected perspectives for the reader. It is not commonly known, for example, that after the United States, Haiti was the first na 127

V oices of M exico

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tion to win independence from Europe; that Brazil and Can ada freed themselves peacefully from their metropolises; that there was an intense, confused movement of adher ences and separations from South America’s viceroyalties and captaincies; or that the Central American countries formed and disintegrated different political units. In contrast with similar works, this book has the undoubt ed merit of surpassing the merely Latin American point of view to integrate into its perspective and comparison the hemisphere’s Caribbean and English-speaking countries. This enriches the contrasts and uncovers unsuspected co incidences, surpassing the hackneyed parallelisms that try to forcibly create a Hispanic America more similar to Bolívar’s dreams than to reality. From my point of view, this text is one of the program’s best. Doctors Gloria Villegas and Patricia Galeana are the au thors of Dos siglos de México (Two Centuries of Mexico), a chronology covering 207 years of history (1800-2007). De spite its title, it not only relates the events in Mexico, but in the entire world, beyond just providing a mere context for understanding national history. As with any work in which the information has to be carefully cho sen, and given the impossibility of including everything available, some readers may find it odd that certain events are not included and others may disapprove of some of the ones that are. There is no solution for this: it is part of the very nature of the work. However, there are chronologies and then there are chronologies. This one uses well-honed criteria, and content selection has been meti culous. Certainly, it is perfectible, but it should be pointed to as an extraordinary effort in Mexico’s publishing world. Of course, this is a reference work, among other things because, if read straight through, it leaves the reader with an ominous, forlorn impression of our species. Lastly, Mujeres insurgentes (Women Insurgents) intro duces the gender perspective into this group of books with a compilation based on the Senate’s open call for texts. I think the topic could have been much more developed, but it certainly it is revealing that the participation of women in the fight for independence was included. Despite their so cial and economic condition, whether they were well known 128

—Josefa Ortiz, Leona Vicario, Ger trudis Bocanegra— or anonymous, they played a central role in this period, as they have in all others. Rec ognizing that and repairing their previously being overlooked is a his toric debt which only now is there an attempt to repay. It should be rec ognized that other books besides those reviewed here not only deal with women, but also —and this is no less significant— there may even be more women authors than men. Lastly, I should underline that the books reviewed here are by no means all those produced by this publishing pro gram. It also includes art books; an exquisite facsimile of the Constitution of Apatzingán preceded by a study by Héc tor Fix-Zamudio; works underway about the Mexican Revo lution; and others I had to omit because of lack of space. There are many reasons to praise the way in which the Senate Special Commission in Charge of the Bicentennial of Independence and Centennial of the Mexican Revolu tion Festivities used its budget to achieve its goal. Some of the most important are that it was able to establish alliances and partnerships to co-publish and disseminate the works. Then, turning its back on a long tradition of centralism, it incorporated in every way the states nationwide, underlin ing their importance for understanding the country (a spe cial example of this is the chronology Dos siglos de México). And, it encouraged works with both a multicultural and a gender perspective; and, of course, its publications are free, as established by law. Among its failings we should note the lack of children’s books, books about Mexico’s participation in different inter national forums and legal instruments, and, lastly, the use of literature (short stories or novels) as a means to dissemi nate our identity.

Arturo Cosme Valadez Coordinator of the Publishing Program of the Senate Special Commission in Charge of the Bicentennial of Independence and Centennial of the Mexican Revolution Festivities